You're entirely missing the point. Rippers will always create rips. If there's only Zeta for them to rip, then you end up with a hundred Zeta rips. This is obviously bad, especially as Zeta sucks so much (both in gameplay, and programming-wise). However, if there are fifty different open-source projects, there will still be around a hundred rips, because there are no more people to work on them than there were before; and there will be, on average, only two rips of each game. Which is vastly, VASTLY preferable to the current situation.
You may think that more open-source games leads to more rips, but it ain't necessarily so. I've seen people's hub listings filled with ten Zeta rips at a time. They wouldn't have ten Zeta rips AND ten OpenRPG rips AND ten Bob the Hack'n'Slasher rips all at once. They'd be more likely to have three or four of each.
No, Leftley is entirely missing the point. I see the point just fine. Yes, rippers will always create rips. What does that have to do with anything? I never suggested squashing open source games like Leftley seems to think I am suggesting, all I am doing is commenting on having an open source channel that responsible people (or ones that at least admit what they are doing) can put their spin-offs and rips in. If that idea was implemented and used correctly, it would improve the hub by brushing at least some of the games in question to the side, though not getting rid of them since I never suggested that.
I have gone into quite a few games that were obviously using the code, icons and sometimes even the same map file as some other game. Sometimes they admit to what they are doing and sometimes they do not, and the ones that admit to it would most likely be responsible enough to click on the check-box (Having a check box to click when you host or publish a game is one way to go about it) labeled "Open Source Spin-Off".
My point was not that open source projects spontaneously generate clones of themselves, it is the degenerate people who lurk about that multiply them. Open source projects spawn more games, perhaps not directly but they do usher them in.
Why would you want to eliminate open source projects? Why would you want to prevent the knock-offs? Why would you want to stop newbies from making their own games? None of those things should be done. Instead, it might be beneficial if some measures were taken so that those all don't clog the main areas of the hub; and that is what we are talking about. There is no need to squash them, but it would be nice to brush some of them to the side.
Yes I do believe the hub would get better. If there was an Open Source section and some of the people were responsible enough to use it (Many people take credit for others work, but there are also many who are responsible and admit their games are based off of others' code) then that would reduce the number of spin offs in the main sections of the hub. The more people are responsible enough to use that section the better the section makes the main parts of the hub, and it would be beneficial if even only a third or a quarter of the total rips and/or spin-offs went there.
If there was a section for people to put these types of games, it might make more people more apt to admit what they have done as well, thus improving the situation even farther.
That is completely rediculous. Organizing games into an Open Source channel is nothing like organising games into a "Contains the letter K" channel. It makes complete sense to have an open source channel for people to browse through if they have looked through most of the original games of their favored genre. In fact, it makes more sense than having an unpublished section for games live, I would much rather play a modified game than a bugged up, half finished game.