RuneScape Forum Archive | Update jagexappletviewer.jar

Jan

2016

Hmm

Posts: 13,000 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The jagex applet viewer at https://oldschool.runescape.com/downloads/jagexappletviewer.jar is out of date and I'd really appreciate if it could be updated.

This download link is primarily provided for users of alternative OS's, Linux and so, to be able to grab a launcher without having to mess around with extracing files from the Windows and Mac clients directly. Whilst this isn't impossible to do, the best results come from the OsX bundle, and the OsX bundle is annoying to work with and in the future might not work at all, such as if Jagex adopt APFS like they do for the RS3 client, it would become impossible to grab it, as well as breaking any wrappers that try.

So if possible, please update the link at the top to have the latest version of the launcher from the OsX bundle, as it contains a lot of fixes, and there's thousands of users using the outdated launcher as is

Thanks

03-Feb-2020 16:48:20

CM Nick

Local Moderator Posts: 9,140 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I can pass this along to the relevant teams today - cheers for highlighting this. Community Manager for Jagex

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03-Feb-2020 19:52:48

Jan

2016

Hmm

Posts: 13,000 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Thanks Nick!

If I remember rightly, I think you've said in the past that part of your duties revolve around the legal aspects of the game, intellectual property and such. Do you suppose Jagex could consider removing the redistribution restrictions on the game launcher (specifically the launcher portion, not the client itself or assets). It adds a significant amount of technical debt abiding by copyright laws, while Jagex could give permission to redistribute it independant of the restrictions of the rest of the client.

I'm assuming the answer is likely no, since lawyers like to cover their bases, but it'd be a huge benefit to myself and many other packagers of RS for niche platforms, a lot of the time spent working on these third party packages is making them work legally, rather than making them work at a technical level.

For example, the web team wouldn't need to be involved in this request if it were as simple as me just bundling the proper Mac launcher myself, but that can't be done since Jagex owns the assets and only they have the rights to distribute them. Instead you have to code it so the clients get the launcher from Jagex directly. It doesn't benefit Jagex or the maintainers having it like that.

03-Feb-2020 20:26:10 - Last edited on 03-Feb-2020 20:53:57 by Hmm

CM Nick

Local Moderator Posts: 9,140 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hmm said :
Thanks Nick!

If I remember rightly, I think you've said in the past that part of your duties revolve around the legal aspects of the game, intellectual property and such. Do you suppose Jagex could consider removing the redistribution restrictions on the game launcher (specifically the launcher portion, not the client itself or assets). It adds a significant amount of technical debt abiding by copyright laws, while Jagex could give permission to redistribute it independant of the restrictions of the rest of the client.

I'm assuming the answer is likely no, since lawyers like to cover their bases, but it'd be a huge benefit to myself and many other packagers of RS for niche platforms, a lot of the time spent working on these third party packages is making them work legally, rather than making them work at a technical level.

For example, the web team wouldn't need to be involved in this request if it were as simple as me just bundling the proper Mac launcher myself, but that can't be done since Jagex owns the assets and only they have the rights to distribute them. Instead you have to code it so the clients get the launcher from Jagex directly. It doesn't benefit Jagex or the maintainers having it like that, because it's more variables to consider and more things to go wrong.

Interesting query - my initial inclination is that you're right, and the answer is likely no, since... yeah I think there would definitely be a lot of legal red tape... but it's definitely something I can bring up to see if Jagex will comment on

Cheers! Community Manager for Jagex

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03-Feb-2020 20:54:58

Jan

2016

Hmm

Posts: 13,000 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Thanks a lot!

For comparison, this query isn't a unique scenario as far as Linux goes, Steam has a license that allows for the exact same scenario as above. Third parties are entirely allowed to create alternative installation packages for Steam, provided that it is exclusively the launcher portion. Like RS, Steam's launcher manages the actual good stuff, so all the updates come from upstream and nothing from the user perspective is any different. Similarly, Discord and a lot of other companies do the same, but have the grant include up to the entire client software for redistribution. (Frankly that is too much for the case of RS, it'd just cause more work and is asking for a lot more legally to no benefit).

Anyway, I don't really have anything else to add. So thanks again and hopefully there'll be some good news on whichever front

!

03-Feb-2020 21:05:41 - Last edited on 03-Feb-2020 21:07:29 by Hmm

Coringao

Posts: 1 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hi,
My name is Carlos and I am the maintainer of a script that uses "jagexappletviewer.jar" for Linux users to play Old School RuneScape on their Debian/Ubuntu based distributions officially.

https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/runescape
https://packages.debian.org/buster/runescape
https://packages.ubuntu.com/eoan/runescape

This is a simple script that downloads and runs the Old School Runescape client file on unofficial GNU/Linux distributions and distributed under the BSD-2-Clause license.

In this script, you will download the "jagexappletviewer.jar" file from the official client and then prepare the sandbox environment located at "$HOME/.local/share/runescape" and run the game.

https://gitlab.com/coringao/runescape
https://gitlab.com/coringao/runescape/-/blob/master/src/runescape.sh

And now I verified that this link does not have the file. Leaving thousands of users using Linux without playing.

Could you let me know if this file is just undergoing an update or removing it permanently?

Thanks! Free software activist and Debian user (Gnome)

20-Apr-2020 03:26:52

Jan

2016

Hmm

Posts: 13,000 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hey, I do the Snap packaging for the "runescape" snap, so we're pretty aligned on the Ubuntu/Debian front

You might want to take a look at how its done using the OsX bundle here

https://github.com/MrCarroll/runescape-snap/blob/63b5117466649b5e47dd5537d159931a151d07c6/osrs/bin/osrs-launcher#L42

Particularly with the OsX jar, be sure to pass -Djava.system.class.loader=app.systemclassloader (I'm unsure if this explicitly requires JRE 9+; I've never had to worry about it with Snap, Java 8 might simply ignore it, but specifically, Java 8 doesn't need this parameter to fix the issue) such as to ensure that the copyright and trademark banners disappear correctly.

I'd imagine this would continue to work for the next couple of years. RS3 did use APFS for the Mac bundle for a while which caused extraction issues, but upon getting in touch with an engine mod, it was reverted back to HFS+. I don't think there's a strong technical reason for them to choose APFS but you'd probably want to check on the offchance it happens going forward.

From what I recall from using 7Z for this purpose, the extraction command works slightly differently on Ubuntu 16.04 vs 18.04+; you need to extract the archive and the subarchive in 16.04 but it implicitly extracts the data archive in 18.04+. I'm not particularly sure how this compares to Debian stable versions.

You want to ideally avoid using the Windows package for finding the .jar, because I think it's older, designed for Java 8, and the copyright footers won't disappear if you do; whilst the console will shout at you for illegal memory exceptions. On top of this, it's just a bigger file.

Hopefully this helps you somewhat!

(PS Jagex please fix the link anyway, I'll give you cookies if you put the RS3 launcher raw on there too! and I'll even throw in a teddy bear for redistribution rights!)

20-Apr-2020 06:22:33 - Last edited on 20-Apr-2020 06:34:57 by Hmm

Jan

2016

Hmm

Posts: 13,000 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I thought I'd post an update on this thread, since a) the original request for the jagexappletviewer is still unfullfilled, and the request for EULA clarification has been met, and I'm very much annoyed.

Jagex updated the EULA on the 17th of May 2020. It's visible here https://www.jagex.com/en-GB/legal/eula-runescape-oldschool

They updated this with zero indication. No homepage news post. It was just dropped blindly. This is generally a scummy move. However, not even the installers for the game are updated, and they distribute the old EULA in their installer process. This is incredibly scummy, because legally, the newer EULA still applies, whilst people are only agreeing to the original release. (Although lets be honest, we all know no one's actually reading it, it's still dishonest behaviour)

However, the second new EULA, rather than actually change anything that I asked for, went out of it's way to actively spite me, and in doing so, has several stupid logical conclusions, such as running an operating system alongside RuneScape is now actually prohibbited by the EULA, which is the logical consequence of section 2.2, where software is prohibitted not by how it is actually used, but by how it can potentially be used.

Running Android/iOs/Windows/Whatever alongside RuneScape is now prohibited by it's own EULA.

Whilst I honestly believe this this leads to many conclusions that would be considered unenforcable in a court of law. It still irritates me to see Jagex even trying, because there was generally no problem with the old EULA to Jagex, and the new one offers Jagex no actual benefits, (the old can still be found here https://content.runescape.com/downloads/LICENCE.txt ).

Whilst I would like to thank Nick for actually sending the request in, I must say, Jagex is literally spitting in my face here if having seen that request, this is the response they give.

This is an abomination of stupid unnecessary legalese for no benefit, and I am disgusted with it.

16-Jun-2020 10:13:28 - Last edited on 16-Jun-2020 10:43:19 by Hmm

Jan

2016

Hmm

Posts: 13,000 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

As an aside, I also made a reddit thread on this 3 months ago clarifying why I'd have liked the EULA to be changed, and I cannot understand how Jagex managed to read these comments and do a complete 180, so far as to write some of the most stupid logical conclusions in as little paragraphs as possible.

https://www.reddit.com/r/runescape/comments/fgc2hr/jagex_please_allow_redistribution_of_the_launcher/

The reality is, to the majority of people, there might not be an actual issue as far as they're concerned.

But to me, Carlos above, and a lot of other people trying to fix Jagex's problems for the community benefit, Jagex has responded by attempting to criminalise good faith, creating complications that didn't exist, not even being curteous enough to highlight that they've done that, and generally, achieved a new low.

Frankly, I'm going to stop putting in effort where worse than not being appreciated, Jagex goes out it's way to spite its community to the point it attempts to criminalise them behind their backs with no prior notice.

16-Jun-2020 10:17:03 - Last edited on 16-Jun-2020 10:40:56 by Hmm

Maynne

Forum Moderator Posts: 52,416 Emerald Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hmm said :

Jagex updated the EULA on the 17th of May 2020. It's visible here https://www.jagex.com/en-GB/legal/eula-runescape-oldschool

They updated this with zero indication. No homepage news post. It was just dropped blindly. This is generally a scummy move. However, not even the installers for the game are updated, and they distribute the old EULA in their installer process. This is incredibly scummy, because legally, the newer EULA still applies, whilst people are only agreeing to the original release. (Although lets be honest, we all know no one's actually reading it, it's still dishonest behaviour)

I fully understand where you are coming from.

But such can be denied by Jagex, through the Terms of Service that states:

"We may change these terms and conditions to reflect: (a) changes in applicable laws; (b) regulatory or security requirements; (c) relevant guidance or codes of practice; (d) technical alterations to Jagex Products; and (e) to improve clarity and consistency. Please check the terms and conditions whenever you use a Jagex Product. If you are not a Subscriber, we will treat your continued use of a Jagex Product as acceptance of these changes from their effective date (as shown above). If you are a Subscriber, we will treat the first renewal date of your subscription after the changes as your acceptance of the changes."

Basically all of us here in Runescape signed-up for the Terms of Service, including all its unannounced changes both big and small. Jagex has a legal shield.

16-Jun-2020 12:25:08

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