The sounds for the old and modern bus are swapped (no. 27 and 28). See #32 for a fix.

Currently, OpenSFX is licensed under the ancient CC Sampling Plus 1.0 license, which is even discouraged by Creative Commons themselves. It's also a non-FOSS license. It forbids use in advertising, which is a really dumb restriction.

I like to have OpenSFX be licensed under a proper FOSS license. Possible candidates are e.g. CC BY-SA, CC BY, or CC0. Note that -NC or -ND clauses from Creative Commons are incompatible with free software.

First of all, yes, I am fully aware that this will be likely be a pretty big task, but I think it's pretty important, considering how OpenTTD prides itself as a FOSS project, and OpenSFX is kinda important for OpenTTD. The "Open" in "OpenSFX" should mean "open", and not "open, but ...". :D

My idea is to do this in multiple steps.

• Step 1: Document the origin and current license state of each sound and put it in the README, so we know which sounds are problematic
• Step 2: Keep the sounds that are looking fine (e.g. CC0, CC BY, CC BY-SA)
• Step 3: Replace the remaining sounds with other ones that are under FOSS license
• Step 3: Change the official OpenSFX license to an actual FOSS license
• Step 4: Make a new release
• Step 5: Celebrate. :D

I have done a part of the work in documenting the license of most of the original Freesound sounds. I even managed to convince a few authors to relicense their works. It was not a lot of sounds, unfortunately, but better than nothing. See here: https://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=85815

I have checked the origin and original license of all the OpenSFX sounds and I created a nice list as an overview. Here's the list for your information:

• "1sticky8" from "freesound.org"
  • Dumpster_Diving.wav (CC0)
• "acclivity" from "freesound.org"
  • ChugChugWooHoo.mp3 (CC BY-NC 3.0)
  • TwoCows.wav (CC BY-NC 3.0)
• "AGFX" from "freesound.org"
  • Squeeky ball Toy_1.L.wav (CC0)
• "Aldor" from "pdsounds.org"
  • L'ascenseur* Elevator (Public Domain)
• "alexrigg" from "freesound.org"
  • crash_treefall_SE.mp3 (UNKNOWN LICENSE)
• "Anton" from "freesound.org"
  • wind1.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "Benboncan" from "freesound.org"
  • Circular saw crosscutting.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "benhillyard" from "freesound.org"
  • Vocal_Splat_08.wav (CC BY-NC 3.0)
• "Bidone" from "freesound.org"
  • Affen schreit.mp3 (CC0)
• "cats2009" from "freesound.org"
  • blue_angels.wav (CC Sampling Plus 1.0)
• "cfork" from "freesound.org"
  • boing_raw.aif (CC BY 3.0)
• "conny" from "freesound.org"
  • DATSUN_T.wav (CC Sampling Plus 1.0)
• David R Barnes ("earthcalling") from "pdsounds.org"
  • Corner of a sheep field in summer (Public Domain)
• "ddub" from "freesound.org"
  • concorde.mp3 (CC Sampling Plus 1.0)
• Derek Murphy ("robbiesurp" at "freesound.org")
  • wfl5.5_snap.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "www.digifishmusic.com" ("digifishmusic" at "freesound.org")
  • Passenger jet departs 2.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "dobroide" from "freesound.org"
  • 20060419.horse.neigh.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• Elaine Miller ("Miselaineous" at "freesound.org")
  • elaine-growl.wav (CC Sampling Plus 1.0)
• "Goldy-sama" from "freesound.org"
  • bulle.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "Halleck" from "freesound.org"
  • JacobsLadderLong2.flac (CC BY 3.0)
• "han1" from "freesound.org"
  • Car start and drive.mp3 (CC BY 3.0)
  • claxon.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "HerbertBoland" from "freesound.org"
  • MouthPop.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• huha from "tt-forums.net"
  • maglev_sound_2.wav (UNKNOWN LICENSE)
• "icmusic" from "freesound.org"
  • london bus approaches & leaves.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• Janis Lukss ("Pendrokar" at "wiki.openttd.org")
  • Own recordings/mixes (UNKNOWN LICENSE)
• "jascha" from "freesound.org"
  • kick_1.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "JFBSAUVE" from "freesound.org"
  • CHAINSAW.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• Jillian Callahan ("JillianCallahan" at "freesound.org")
  • generic prop_start(8.395).wav (CC Sampling Plus 1.0)
• "joedeshon" from "freesound.org"
  • slide_whistle_down_fast_01.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "krillion" from "freesound.org"
  • flyby.mp3 (CC Sampling Plus 1.0)
• "l0calh05t" from "freesound.org"
  • in the smithy 2.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "Leady" from "freesound.org"
  • Dropping a large gun.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• Leon Milo ("milo" at "freesound.org")
  • msfinmarken_Bergen.aif (CC BY 3.0)
  • ship2_bergen.aif (CC BY 3.0)
• lonemonk from "freesound.org"
  • Approx 850 - Enthusiast Audience.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "lorenzosu" from "freesound.org"
  • helicopterRaw_16sec.wav (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• "man" from "freesound.org"
  • swosh.aif (CC BY 3.0)
• "Marec" from "freesound.org"
  • metro.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "Matias.Reccius" from "freesound.org"
  • crashB.wav (CC0)
• "Necrosensual" from "freesound.org"
  • aluminum02.wav (CC0)
• "NoiseCollector" from "freesound.org"
  • CRASH2.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "patchen" from "freesound.org"
  • Locomotive 1 Distant horn.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "Pooleside" from "freesound.org"
  • nnb04_maxed.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• Remko Bijker ("Rubidium" at "dev.openttdcoop.org")
  • Own work
• Richard Frohlich ("FreqMan" at "freesound.org")
  • whoosh06.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• Robert Gacek ("Robinhood76" at "freesound.org")
  • 01063 roadworks driller.wav (CC BY-NC 3.0)
• "roscoetoon" from "freesound.org"
  • rr_cross5.wav (CC BY 3.0)
  • t_start1.mp3 (CC BY 3.0)
• "Q.K." from "freesound.org"
  • Metal_03.wav (CC0)
• "sagetyrtle" from "freesound.org"
  • crash.wav (CC0)
• "saphix" from "freesound.org"
  • file0375.mp3 (CC0)
• "scuola_rocca_di_botte" from "freesound.org"
  • Manuel Tarquini.wav (CC Sampling Plus 1.0)
• "Sedi" from "freesound.org"
  • ae_51_m.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "simon.rue" from "freesound.org"
  • Boink_v3.wav (CC0)
• "SlykMrByches" from "freesound.org"
  • splattt.mp3 (CC0)
• "Stickinthemud" from "freesound.org"
  • Bike Horn double toot.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "suonho" from "freesound.org"
  • ELEMENTS_WATER_02_Phasin-bubbles.wav (CC BY 3.0)
• "tigersound" from "freesound.org"
  • bird tweet.aif (CC BY-NC 3.0)
  • bird tweet 4.aif (CC BY-NC 3.0)
• Timo A. Hummel ("Felicitus" at "dev.openttdcoop.org")
  • Own work (UNKNOWN LICENSE)
• Tom Haigh ("audible-edge" at "freesound.org")
  • Nissan Maxima burnout (04-25-2009).wav (CC0)
• "VEXST" from "freesound.org"
  • Snare 4.wav (CC BY 3.0)

Is this list good enough to update the README?

As my research into the license status of the original (unedited) sound samples from Freesound.org showed, a lot of files were actually released under libre licenses! This contradicts the current claim in the READM

But it seems that is not really "enough" to truly liberate OpenSFX. Because most sounds were actually edited. The following people are listed as editors in the README:

• Janis Lukss ("Pendrokar" at "wiki.openttd.org")
• "janusz" from "dev.openttdcoop.org"
• "Jklamo" from "wiki.opentd.org"
• Remko Bijker ("Rubidium" at "dev.openttdcoop.org")
• Richard Wheeler ("Zephyris" at "dev.openttdcoop.org")

I am hereby asking permission from everyone in this list above that the OpenTTD community is permitted to use your sound edits under a libre/FOSS license. That would mean we could instantly flip the license of many of the actual sound files in OpenSFX to a libre one without needing to edit anything. It would make the entire OpenSFX 'libre' yet, but it would greatly speed up the effort.

How I imagine a relicense would work: It would work if two conditions are true:

1. The source sound(s) that were us is under a FOSS license (see my research in #5)
2. The person who edited the sound (see above) also gave their OK to relicense

If both conditions are true, then the sound in question can be kept, only the license in the text files needs updating. Ideally, this would happen for all sounds, but I know it won't.

Hint: Seems like src/opensfx.sfo does a good job in documenting in what happened to each source sound.

I don't know how to contact most of the people on the list above, so if anyone knows, please reach out to these people. If we get the OK even from one person, that would be nice.

In case that we get the OK from nobody, then there's still the semi-nuclear option: Redoing them by someone who can give their OK. Thankfully, at least most source files are already libre.
(Note that for the sounds with clear non-libre sources, we only have the nuclear option; those need to be replaced no matter what. I already reached out to pretty much any author of the originals, and a few sounds got libre (yay!), but not all.)

I basically just opened this issue for the chance to simplify the work of 'liberating' OpenSFX before moving on to the nuclear option.

This is a reminder/request to do a new release once OpenSFX has obtained a healthy number of translations.

Currently, there are two empty sounds in OpenSFX: osfx_34.wav (SND_22_CAR_HORN) and osfx_50.wav (SND_32_POP_2).

Those sounds are not used in OpenTTD so far (1.10.0), according to looking at the source code. (Here's an overview btw: https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Development/SoundIDs). So it is currently perfectly OK that both sounds are empty.

But would it make sense to create sound files for those two, just in case that support for OpenTTD is added later? It seems like the first one is meant for a car horn, and the second one is meant for an 'alternative' bubble pop sound for the Toyland bubble generator.

See also: OpenTTD/OpenTTD#8619

If you select OpenSFX in the game settings, the buttons for the readme, changelog and license are grayed out.

Can you please make them clickable?

I am using OpenSFX 0.2.3.

I don't know if this is the right place to write it, but I write it here. I noticed the OpenSFX add-on description in BaNaNaS says in the first sentence (emphasis mine):

The OpenSFX Sound Pack is an open source replacement for the original Transport Tycoon Deluxe sounds used by OpenTTD.

I suggest to drop the “replacement” wording, as OpenSFX is perfectly valid in its own right. I suggest to replace the first sentence with:

OpenSFX is a free/libre set of base sounds for OpenTTD.

Or something like that.

Note I already got rid of the “replacement” wording in the language files in #36, and it was accepted. Now I simply suggest to also do that for the add-on description in BaNaNaS.

There's a lot of legacy Mercurial-related stuff (scripts and in the README) all over this repository. This needs to be converted to be Git-compatible.

I'm in the process of updating the Debian package for OpenSFX. With all the new licenses on the sounds, I should be able to upload the package to Debian's main archive, rather than non-free, which is awesome.

However, the Debian copyright file needs fairly specific machine-readable copyright and licensing information. Most of that seems to present in src/opensfx.psfo, but I'm seeing some minor inconsistencies. In particular:

• Most files are listed as Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported, but some (osfx_42.wav and osfx_43.wav) have Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Since no port is specified explicitly, I'm assuming these two are also the unported versions (I checked the original files too, which also have no port specified, or are cc zero). Maybe good to add "Unported" to these files too?
• The README only mentions CC-BY-SA 3.0 unported for the sound files (and GPL for the code), but opensfx.psfo also mentions CC-BY and CC-0. It seems the README is incomplete here, or is the idea that even though some separate sound files have more permissive licenses, the collection as a whole is licensed under the more restrictive CC-BY-SA (which is allowed AFAICS).
• docs/license.txt only has CC-BY-SA, not CC-BY or CC-0, but I guess that's the same thing as the previous point.
• docs/license.txt contains CDDL (and readme only mentions it), but I cannot find anywhere what it is used for. Is it still relevant?

Currently, in the lang directory, all languages still refer to the "CC Sampling Plus" license (which will soon be dropped in #14).

However, when the license is changed (in #14), this still leaves us with many langauges which still have the old wording, including the name "Samplinig Plus".

This is what english.lng will look like after #14:

OpenSFX sound replacement set for OpenTTD. Freely available under the terms of the following licenses: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported, GNU General Public License version 2 (or later) and Common Development and Distribution License 1.1. Contains samples from "freesound.org" and "pdsound.org". For full credits see "readme.txt". [{TITLE}]

This is what english.lng looks like before #14:

OpenSFX sound replacement set for OpenTTD. Freely available under the terms of the Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 License. Contains samples from "freesound.org" and "pdsound.org". For full credits see "readme.txt". [{TITLE}]

Now the question is, what to do with the translations? If #14 is merged, all translations are no longer valid, so they can no longer be used. The interesting part of the text change is "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported, GNU General Public License version 2 (or later) and Common Development and Distribution License 1.1".

Here are some ideas on what to do with the translations:

• Automatic replacement: Just blindly replace the license name and paste in the new license string. It sounds good on surface, but would not work in practice. This is because of stuff like "version 2 (or later)", or the word "and". If we had only one overall license, we might have gotten away with this. :-(
• Remove all translation files and request translators to start over. This would wipe out ca. 40 translations.
• Keep translation files, but move them to an "archived" directory for reference (until a real translation is made). This would still essentially reset all translations, but could be a little help for translators.

I think the package description is still a bit too long.
When I look in the game settings dialog, OpenSFX stands out for having a long description compared to OpenGFX and OpenMSX.

This is mainly because 3 license names are written out in full. I thought this is OK for consistency with OpenGFX and OpenMSX, which do the same thing. But it's a mouthful nonetheless. The current description:

OpenSFX sound replacement set for OpenTTD. Freely available under the terms of these licenses: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported, GNU General Public License version 2 (or later) and Common Development and Distribution License 1.1. For full credits see "readme.txt". [VERSION]

Any idea what to do?

Here are possible ideas:

• Shorten all license names to the common abbreviation. The full license name is given in the license file anyway
• Drop the mention of licensing in the package description altogether. Again, we have the license file for that
• Decide that the long OpenSFX description is not that big of a deal, and ignore it

Whatever is done to shorten the description in OpenSFX, it should also be done to OpenGFX and OpenMSX as well, simply because of consistency.

I think the 1st option is the better one since one could fully automatically replace the full license names with the abbreviations in all languages. Since the license names should be exactly the same in all language files, this might actually work.

The 2nd option has the major downside that we would have to reset all translations (again). Not an issue for OpenSFX now (the translations were just reset), but an issue for OpenGFX and OpenMSX. On the other hand, once the license info is removed from the description, we will never have to touch the description again in the unlikely even of yet another license change.

The 3rd option is certainly possible because the description is not seriously overlong, just a bit unusual. The game GUI does not break because of this.

This issue is just for your information. Today I have started working on making replacements for the sounds that were derived from non-free source files. I have looked all over Freesound.org and edited a lot, and I am mostly happy with the result now.
I have no idea how to test the sounds in-game, however. A hint would be appreciated.
I didn't touch sounds that came from non-free sources for now, for the off-chance that any of the original sound editors appear again and give their OK to switch away from Sampling Plus. (see #6)

I hope to soon (TM) post a PR so you can review the new sounds.

I have asked in the forums for translations here: https://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=88579

I want to wait until Mar 6, 2021. After that, I want to add all translations that were posted to far in a PR. This issue is just a reminder for that.

Phase 1: Replacing clear non-free sounds (#8)
Phase 2: Updating license list for already free sounds (both free souce + permission from ediors) (#6)
Phase 3: Re-doing the sounds based on free sourced but no permission from editor
Phase 4: Update README and other metadata stuff
Phase 5: Set libre license for this project (#2)
Phase 6: Bump version number and do a release

While building the Debian package for the latest release, I came across a few issues:

1. make generates src/opensfx.sfo, but make clean does not clean it.
2. The tarball contains an opensfx.obs file, but running make regenerates this file (because opensfx.cat is not present, which is generated and the obs depends on the cat, so the obs is regenerated). Is this intentional? This is somewhat problematic, since the build now (potentially) modifies a file from the tarball, and make clean then removes it, which means that make && make clean leave the build dir in a different state.
3. make check does no longer work. The Makefile part that handles this seems to use grfid and expect opensfx.grf to exist, which is not the case. Makefile.config does specify MD5_SRC_FILENAME (pointing to the obs file), but that file contains more than just an md5 file, so I'm not exactly sure how this is intended. The old makefile system would ship an opensfx-0.2.3.md5 in the tarball, and then just generate md5sums of the relevant files (only the .cat file I think) and compare those with the shipped file. What is the intention here?
4. The repo still contains scripts/Makefile.{bundles,def,common}, but these seem unused?
5. make bundle no longer seems to work to install the bundle into $(DIR_NAME) as before (and as documented). Weirdly enough it just says "make: Nothing to be done for 'bundle'", but I can't actually find a rule for bundle (perhaps some wildcard rule or something). This rule was previously used by the Debian package to install individual files into /usr/share/games/openttd/baseset/opensfx (rather than a tarball), since there is not much point in merging files into a tarball inside a Debian package (though I'm now switching to using make install instead, which also installs separate files).
6. make install generates a tarball, but does not actually use it (instead, it installs separate files, which is what I'm using now). I think it could just depend on $(DIR_NAME) rather than $(DIR_NAME).tar.

Due to the death of the .devzone, it has been requested by core devs that OpenSFX gets some kind of new "build system automation". I was told this was even a release requirement.

The common proposal was to use GitHub Actions. I have no idea how exactly it works, but I leave this issue open, as a reminder.

Wishlist for 1.0.0:

• Fully libre (#2)
• Fix old broken Mercurial-related scripts (#10)
• Figure out how make a clean build (There has been no release for over 10 years! Cleanup might be neccessary)
• Make sure the correct version number appears everywhere in the build
• Update changelog (don't forget to update the date!)
• Test, test, test!
• Post on BaNaNas

Why 1.0.0? Well, it's a complete sound pack, and it will (hopefully) be 100% libre soon. That's everything it needs, really. I see no reason why not going straight for 1.0.0 then. ;-)

(This issue is specifically addressed at rubidium42, also known as "Rubidium".)

@rubidium42: It seems that you contributed at least 1 sound to OpenSFX, but from the README it is not exactly clear which sound it was. The license of that work is also not specified.

Can you please tell which sound you contributed and also the license / legal conditions under which you did so? I already asked you in the forums years ago but got no reply. :-(

I ask this because of #2.

What is this .devzone thing for? It seems to be unused and a leftover from ages ago. Would it be OK to delete it entirely?

It's been about 6 months since the last release, and in the meantime, many translations have been added.
I suggest to make a new release.

New languages:

• Tamil
• Arabic Egyptian
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Turkish
• Japanese
• Spanish MX (I don't know what "MX" stands for)
• Greek
• Latvian
• Indonesian
• Luxemburgish
• Serbian

Updated languages:

• Italian
• Romanian
• Korean
• Ukrainian