> what exactly are you trying to help explain from davorb's post? Are you sure that what you're explaining was in davorb's post?

One can never be sure about what someone else is thinking, buy davorb did link to the FSF page “Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software” (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....), and since I am fairly familiar with the FSF’s world view, I thought I could clarify, since you seemed to have actual trouble even conceiving any other point of view than the contrasting Open Source one. I suggest that you simply read the linked page, it explains it more explicitly and at more length.

Regarding copyright in general, I am personally very suspicious of the concept (as explained by many others elsewhere). But the FSF’s view is more narrow, focused on software, and your work is producing software, which makes this relevant. And the FSF’s argument why, for software, the right of modification (with implied source code) is important, is, I think, a compelling one.

(You can’t argue that selling yourself into slavery is OK since enlisting oneself is allowed. If that was not the argument you were trying to make, I don’t understand it.)

> Do you consider free as in beer - but proprietary - software to be immoral?

I would have to say yes. It is offering something nice which contains a hidden trap.

> Do you consider free as in beer - but proprietary, and subscription requiring - software to be immoral?

I don’t think so. What you are paying for is not the software, but the service, of which the software is a tool the provider uses to provide the service. Of course, this has other dangers (privacy and dependency), but it is not, I think, necessarily inherently a bad thing.

> I can sympathize a little with the "I thought I was buying it but all I got was renting a license" argument.

It also dilutes the very concept of “owning”. When the Playstation was remotely downgraded by Sony, I saw the argument made that of course Sony had a right to do that to everybody’s Playstation, since it was, and I quote, “their [i.e. Sony’s] console”. People actually had the idea that, even though people had paid money for a console and owned it, it was still, and forevermore, within the domain of Sony, and that Sony therefore had the right to do whatever they wanted to it. This is a dangerous dilution of the concept of ownership.

> And being okay with subscription payment model, but not okay with a one time fee payment model, requires some level of cognitive dissonance I simply don't have.

It’s a question of what causes people to dilute the concept of ownership, and what teaches people to be more downtrodden, helpless, dependent, and afraid. I am against that which does this. Technically the same deal, presented differently, might not have this effect, in which case I would not object to it (on these grounds, at least).

> And while I'd generally agree with your statement, I admit - I wouldn't consider it a bad thing if pirates felt a bit more helpless and powerless

Who are you referring to when you say “pirates”? Are they the ones who crack the game? Those people are incorrigible and will only be aggravated by more copy protection and DRM. Are you instead referring to those which use a cracked copy of the game? Those people are impossible to make more helpless than your regular users. Your regular users, however, will be made to feel helpless if only DRM and online-only play (and no modding tools or source code) is provided.

> Because that's simply not a fair or equitable exchange.

I’d be more sympathetic if 99% of the server components of modern games weren’t only for their DRM-like properties (online-only play even for single-player campaigns, etc.) If, on the other hand, the servers were an optional component, you might solve the ethical problem by simply charging a recurring service fee for the server access.

> And yet I feel judged.

Them’s the breaks.

> But: surely it's only fair to compare the positive impact of my game against the positive impact of the activity that would have replaced it,

Yes.

> not against every possible activity?

That was not my intention.