I'm not sure how the term "patent" is to be interpreted here. It could be used like back in the days when Apple sued Samsung because their phone had rounded edges too...
Like a "design patent" (sorry, I'm not a native English speaker, so I'm unsure if this is the correct translation).
A lot of the pals in the game look quite close to Pokémon. Not identical, of course, but so similar that one just has to wonder if the design has been "inspired" by Pokémon...
Short answer: Whales.
Long answer: Watch the South Park episode on the topic. They explain it in detail. It's titled "Freemium Isn't Free".
Need to enshittify it enough to make the AI features feel like an improvement.
I don't know if this applies to CLAW, but many games back then had their audio stored as CD Audio Tracks. If that is the case, you might want to actually emulate a CDROM drive instead of just extracting the files. There is a CDROM emulator for Linux, called CDEmu, which can read CUE/BIN CD Images.
Oh, and that game seems to have an ancient 16-bit installer, which might not work on modern systems. However, according to WineHQ Appdb one can just copy the files from the CD and it works.
In addition to LibreOffice I often use standalone tools.
If I want a high quality document, I use LaTeX. Same for presentation slides. However, writing stuff in LaTeX is only worth the effort if the quality is needed. For non-important stuff I just use LibreOffice.
For calculations it depends on what I want to have in the end. If I just want to play with the data a bit, then LibreOffice Calc it is. However, if it is for something serious, I tend to write script files, or even full programs, that do the processing. That way computation and data is in separate files, and the used formulas are clearly visible and easy to debug.
I have been a user since the 90s. Back then it was still called StarOffice.
Its feature set differs from that of MS Office, and its performance could be (a lot!) better, but I strongly prefer the LibreOffice user interface, and the features that matter to me (like CSV import) are way better in LibreOffice. However, LibreOffice does not have all the features of MS Office, and some are notably worse (for instance auto-fill in spreadsheets, where Excel is way better at guessing the next value).
Sadly it's not only a matter of preference, because file exchange between different office suites is not flawless. MS Office and LibreOffice don't agree 100% on how to load each other's files...
Yep, innoextract just unpacks the files, and I then place them into a folder in the home dir. Before I knew about innoextract I also just used WINE to run the installers, and then copied the installed files around. (btw, the apple pkg installers can also be unpacked by a combination of 7z and cpio - in case you just want to unpack one of the many GoG Dosbox games and don't have innoextract or WINE available)
I have a folder named ~/Games - and the individual games in subfolders there. In Steam's "add non-steam game" dialogue there's a "browse" button, and in that one I then select the .exe file of the game. That adds it to the library, and allows selecting Proton as compatibility tool in the preferences.
I am pretty sure the Steam Client reports which games you play to Steam's "presence" service, such that your Steam Friends can see what you are playing. I don't know if Valve gathers that data for other purposes (but would assume they do unless told otherwise). Also, some games that ship with Steam integration in their GoG installer (e.g. Loop Hero) will even track as you playing the Steam version - even if you don't own it there.
And yeah, there is no GoG Galaxy emulation in Steam of course, but I honestly don't care much about achievements. The lack of cloud support in non-Steam games is annoying though, as I also have a Steam Deck and those saves don't automatically synch...
I usually just download the installers from their website. It's not like I would need to install or update games on a day to day basis...
If the installer is only available for Windows (or if I am using my ARM laptop) I use innoextract to extract the files without needing to run the installer.
For Windows games I found that the easiest way to deal with them is to add them to the Steam Library as a non-steam-game, and to force Proton on them...
Yeah. Super annoying...
AppImage: It solves the problem of too many dependencies by introducing more dependencies.
Does anyone know how to report bugs for this? Because the Linux build is linked against libcurl-gnutls, but libcurl-gnutls is not included in the appimage...
I had to unpack the appimage, and manually create a symlink to my system's libcurl to get it to run.
It depends on what kind of patent. I just googled the term I had used before, and it is indeed what I expected it to be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent
And yes, that name is stupid. That's why I am happy that my native language, German, has a better distinction between "Patent" (what you described) and "Geschmacksmuster" (design patent).
About patents being public: They are. That's because the idea behind patents is that after they expire, anyone can use them to build the technology they describe. The temporary exclusive usage rights that they offer are meant as an incentive for inventors to publish their findings. The only problem is that the legal situation did not keep up with the creativity of patent lawyers... (I will stop now, otherwise this will turn into an endless rant about how broken the patent system is.)