Would it be possible (or actually, is it allowed by the license or similar arrangements) to include "standalone" outer modules in spring which would perform a specific operation and then return the result for the spring engine to draw.
The reason i am asking this is because there should be a way of implementing closed source code and take advantage of it.
Dont get me wrong, open source is a wonderful idea, but a friend of mine said he would have so much to cotribute to the project, but he would not release the sources because the algoritms he would use are a work of art in itself. You know, code that many software houses would pay to get their hands on. (he is a demo coder)
External modules
Moderator: Moderators
oooh... demoscene is teh awsomes... sad that he doesn't want to share... I heard this rumour that a bunch of the devs working on Spore are former Demosceners which makes the game that much cooler... I'm anctiouse to see what our devs have to say about the licencing involved... I know that AI coders are making closed source DLLs so I figure it's basically allowed, might have to share the changes he makes to include hooks for the code he wants to impliment I would say. (I am not on the dev team so wait for their permission I would say)
Krpgpthe is in vioaltion of the GPL license by keeping KAI closed source. Subamrine is no longer in vioaltion now AAI is opensource..
But technically you can compeltely disregard the license. By allowing closed source AI's and thus not enforcing the license the devs have lost power. Any breach fo the license the devs see they cannot fully enforce the license because they skipped out KAI, and thus would be selectively choosing when to enforce it, which in some countries is grounds for nullifying the license in its entirety untill enforced complately everywhere fairly.
This is why companies go after a smany piracy breaches as possible, because if they turn a blind eye to a small group of users harmlessly testing out illegally then their rights are brought into question in bigger cases that may cost them a lot of money, and it effectively renders their product 'free' because any legal case can be resolved with the 'you turned ablind eye to these peopel doing it'
But technically you can compeltely disregard the license. By allowing closed source AI's and thus not enforcing the license the devs have lost power. Any breach fo the license the devs see they cannot fully enforce the license because they skipped out KAI, and thus would be selectively choosing when to enforce it, which in some countries is grounds for nullifying the license in its entirety untill enforced complately everywhere fairly.
This is why companies go after a smany piracy breaches as possible, because if they turn a blind eye to a small group of users harmlessly testing out illegally then their rights are brought into question in bigger cases that may cost them a lot of money, and it effectively renders their product 'free' because any legal case can be resolved with the 'you turned ablind eye to these peopel doing it'
Not quite.
It is not written in law but it is indeed a legal tactic that can be used anywhere, and in soem countries it is written in law.
An example of this is MP3 file sharing and Nintendo ROM's. The RIAA goes after specific users despite the minor impact they make on revenue alone because of such enforcement hitches. Nintendo does the same with illegal roms because if they didnt then they would have no way of effectively stamping out large scale pirace of cartridges and roms.
Now should the RIAA know about a user priating, and choose to ignroe it and instead go after the p2p network alone, then the p2p network can argue that the RIAA forfeited their rights by allowing that user to freely pirate software, and sicne the RIAA didnt act, then that can be interpreted as the RIAA giving the green light and that they're in the clear.
Just the same as if nintendo allowed users to distribute roms but tried to stop an organisation dsitributing them.
Licenses need to be enforced. If you are willing to allow something that the license forbids then you should change your mind or change/ammend the license, because if you dont enforce it then that license becomes absolutely useless.
It is not written in law but it is indeed a legal tactic that can be used anywhere, and in soem countries it is written in law.
An example of this is MP3 file sharing and Nintendo ROM's. The RIAA goes after specific users despite the minor impact they make on revenue alone because of such enforcement hitches. Nintendo does the same with illegal roms because if they didnt then they would have no way of effectively stamping out large scale pirace of cartridges and roms.
Now should the RIAA know about a user priating, and choose to ignroe it and instead go after the p2p network alone, then the p2p network can argue that the RIAA forfeited their rights by allowing that user to freely pirate software, and sicne the RIAA didnt act, then that can be interpreted as the RIAA giving the green light and that they're in the clear.
Just the same as if nintendo allowed users to distribute roms but tried to stop an organisation dsitributing them.
Licenses need to be enforced. If you are willing to allow something that the license forbids then you should change your mind or change/ammend the license, because if you dont enforce it then that license becomes absolutely useless.
I'm with AF on this one
and i have no stock in AI scene's politics so i can say this bias-free
KAI was clsoed source, and AAI - and it was not targetted for license violation by the devs and project leaders - if this does turn into a serious matter (hopefully not, dont want to see Spring die in the courtroom) then, Proejct Spring *has* lost a great deal of its capacity to enforce its total opensource license because of its complictness with KAI and AAI...
and i have no stock in AI scene's politics so i can say this bias-free
KAI was clsoed source, and AAI - and it was not targetted for license violation by the devs and project leaders - if this does turn into a serious matter (hopefully not, dont want to see Spring die in the courtroom) then, Proejct Spring *has* lost a great deal of its capacity to enforce its total opensource license because of its complictness with KAI and AAI...
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hollowsoul
- Posts: 665
- Joined: 06 Jun 2006, 19:49
DISCLAIMER AM NOT A LAWYER
This is all my personally viewpoint on this issue regarding gpl
And may be wrong
Its only argueable for kernel & closed binarys drivers.
Since companys developing them can argue its not derivated work. i.e they ported drivers over from windows. i.e the driver orignal code was developed from non-gpl code.
This is a gray area & untested for gpl2
have a read @ http://kerneltrap.org/node/1735
This is gonna be resolved in gpl3 i believe
Anyway if your friend coded it, it would gpl. But pretty sure it the algroathim is all his code. He still be able to license it under another license for another game if he wanted to, provided its not a derivated work from code already in spring i.e code that gpl.
Its up to peep who code spring to decide the whole issue regarding asking KAI to opensource his AI.
Even still up to country laws when it goes to courtroom. Some countrys can argue u didnt enforce it enough yourself i.e trademarks in austrilia
Now seriously who in court gonna let spring lose gpl copyright(copyleft
) status cause they didnt sue pants off a small time programmer that is releasing his AI for free but no code.
Versus someone ripping the entire code base & using it for a game.
Not a single sane person would try this. Hell if u violate GPL, u lose your right to use gpl / distrube gpl software. Aka SCO & NMAP. NAMP informed them legally they had to stop distruting thier software since they basicly said gpl was void.
Lastly u are blowing this whole thing outof context. Its just 1 AI / 1 programmer. Its up to dev's to decide.
AAI was recently just added to svn & is no longer an issue. Leave it be & let dev's sort it out. Alot of organisation & working out how svn is to be ordered & used. Even documentation to describe AI dev's been made up atm & guidelines to clear the matter for them using svn. Aka alot going on behind scenes
Lastly in order to change Spring to LGPL would be a disaster.
One u would need to get everyone that commmited code to project to agree.
Unless u already had peep had license rights to code over to a single person / body. Used in some open-source projects i.e Mozilla
It would also open up hole for outside companys to make plugins charge money for them. Now u have just split player base up from those who got plugins versus those who dont. And who will be motivated to work on what a commerical plugin does versus buyin it yourself. Now u effective stopped growth.
LGPL is normally only used for UI Widgets. So commerical companys / goverments can make a program using it, so u can use it on a linux desktop for example.
This is all my personally viewpoint on this issue regarding gpl
And may be wrong
Its only argueable for kernel & closed binarys drivers.
Since companys developing them can argue its not derivated work. i.e they ported drivers over from windows. i.e the driver orignal code was developed from non-gpl code.
This is a gray area & untested for gpl2
have a read @ http://kerneltrap.org/node/1735
This is gonna be resolved in gpl3 i believe
Anyway if your friend coded it, it would gpl. But pretty sure it the algroathim is all his code. He still be able to license it under another license for another game if he wanted to, provided its not a derivated work from code already in spring i.e code that gpl.
Its up to peep who code spring to decide the whole issue regarding asking KAI to opensource his AI.
Even still up to country laws when it goes to courtroom. Some countrys can argue u didnt enforce it enough yourself i.e trademarks in austrilia
Now seriously who in court gonna let spring lose gpl copyright(copyleft
) status cause they didnt sue pants off a small time programmer that is releasing his AI for free but no code.Versus someone ripping the entire code base & using it for a game.
Not a single sane person would try this. Hell if u violate GPL, u lose your right to use gpl / distrube gpl software. Aka SCO & NMAP. NAMP informed them legally they had to stop distruting thier software since they basicly said gpl was void.
Lastly u are blowing this whole thing outof context. Its just 1 AI / 1 programmer. Its up to dev's to decide.
AAI was recently just added to svn & is no longer an issue. Leave it be & let dev's sort it out. Alot of organisation & working out how svn is to be ordered & used. Even documentation to describe AI dev's been made up atm & guidelines to clear the matter for them using svn. Aka alot going on behind scenes
Lastly in order to change Spring to LGPL would be a disaster.
One u would need to get everyone that commmited code to project to agree.
Unless u already had peep had license rights to code over to a single person / body. Used in some open-source projects i.e Mozilla
It would also open up hole for outside companys to make plugins charge money for them. Now u have just split player base up from those who got plugins versus those who dont. And who will be motivated to work on what a commerical plugin does versus buyin it yourself. Now u effective stopped growth.
LGPL is normally only used for UI Widgets. So commerical companys / goverments can make a program using it, so u can use it on a linux desktop for example.
KAI is thus a derivative work because it was designed for spring, and uses spring headers, as does all the other AI's and groupAI's for spring.
So yes KAI can be closed source if kept private and not freely distributed.
Also any weight the devs carry is lost. A violator told to cease and desist by the devs would simpyl reply with, you let so and so off so it doesnt matter, I'll do it anyway, and after that what could be done?
So yes KAI can be closed source if kept private and not freely distributed.
Also any weight the devs carry is lost. A violator told to cease and desist by the devs would simpyl reply with, you let so and so off so it doesnt matter, I'll do it anyway, and after that what could be done?
I find it very hard to believe that he actually has an algorithm that shouldn't be opensource. A good and unique implementation sure, but in case of gaming/graphics industry, basically every good algorithm comes from university papers.
I really wouldn't mind to be proven wrong here, but I think it's a little pretentious to say that his algorithms shouldn't be opensource because he can potentially make money out of them. If that is the really case it would be stupid to include them in spring and not in a commercial app.
The demoscene doesn't have some sort of secret stash of elite algorithms. Talking in general here though, I think that's what people are starting to think (spore also does a good job there...).
I really wouldn't mind to be proven wrong here, but I think it's a little pretentious to say that his algorithms shouldn't be opensource because he can potentially make money out of them. If that is the really case it would be stupid to include them in spring and not in a commercial app.
The demoscene doesn't have some sort of secret stash of elite algorithms. Talking in general here though, I think that's what people are starting to think (spore also does a good job there...).
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hollowsoul
- Posts: 665
- Joined: 06 Jun 2006, 19:49
@AF
Nuke all references, to thier pet project. Also got option to sue them even take to small claims court if they dont stop. If they attempt to go commerical straight away u got thier company name & can go after them
Hell peep got companys to provide source code for their hardware cause they used modifed opensource. U dont lose weight of gpl, cause u let 1 peep slide for awhile.
U dont lose rights of license, if no dev that made the ai interface code in question didnt tell them to provide source
GPL has been brought to court number of times in EU & America, dont know countrys off by heart. And has also stood up to the test.
There is noway a sane person, would attempt to rip gpl code these days & assume they get away with it. Prefectly legal to reverse engineer in some countrys and find out the code in question is gpl
But lastly IMO u are better off to take to engine dev's & KAI dev about getting it opensource. Than debating on forums i.e u better off to get peep who make the code agree with u
Nuke all references, to thier pet project. Also got option to sue them even take to small claims court if they dont stop. If they attempt to go commerical straight away u got thier company name & can go after them
Hell peep got companys to provide source code for their hardware cause they used modifed opensource. U dont lose weight of gpl, cause u let 1 peep slide for awhile.
U dont lose rights of license, if no dev that made the ai interface code in question didnt tell them to provide source
GPL has been brought to court number of times in EU & America, dont know countrys off by heart. And has also stood up to the test.
There is noway a sane person, would attempt to rip gpl code these days & assume they get away with it. Prefectly legal to reverse engineer in some countrys and find out the code in question is gpl
But lastly IMO u are better off to take to engine dev's & KAI dev about getting it opensource. Than debating on forums i.e u better off to get peep who make the code agree with u
Last edited by hollowsoul on 06 Aug 2006, 18:48, edited 1 time in total.
He intends to go opensource ocne the ever more unnattainable KAI 1.0 is released, something odd consisting that it took several months after development of his very very very early testbuilds when he just arrived that he released v0.0 alpha, and sicne he arrived he's rewritten from scratch at least 3 times.
He's very cryptic about things which arent worth covering up, and he seems to lack the ability to know that an algorithm can be cleaned up to not have AI specific code in it and be as generic as possible. 80% of AAI and NTai algorithms need little work to be made 'generic' for example a lot of the CActions class would need stuff as simple as replacing "G->getUnitDef" with cb->GetUnitDef etc, even code he isnt using.........
And why he would need to hide his code and how KAI works from competition thats changed its focus from competition to other things, competition fully opensource and actively developed publicly in svn.
The only thing i can think of at all would be epic, but aside from the fact KAI 1.0 would be long finished by the time time Epic alpha 0.01 came out, most people dont take Epic seriously anyways why krogothe would think otherwise is beyond me
Though as usual this is a topic I shouldnt speak of, so I'll refrain from this thread now
He's very cryptic about things which arent worth covering up, and he seems to lack the ability to know that an algorithm can be cleaned up to not have AI specific code in it and be as generic as possible. 80% of AAI and NTai algorithms need little work to be made 'generic' for example a lot of the CActions class would need stuff as simple as replacing "G->getUnitDef" with cb->GetUnitDef etc, even code he isnt using.........
And why he would need to hide his code and how KAI works from competition thats changed its focus from competition to other things, competition fully opensource and actively developed publicly in svn.
The only thing i can think of at all would be epic, but aside from the fact KAI 1.0 would be long finished by the time time Epic alpha 0.01 came out, most people dont take Epic seriously anyways why krogothe would think otherwise is beyond me
Though as usual this is a topic I shouldnt speak of, so I'll refrain from this thread now
quakeworld clients (gpl) have had their closed-source security modules just downloadable from a different source since sourceforge.net didn't allow that. They were dll:s or so:s. It has never been a problem, at least nobody has thought it would be.
Of course they don't contain any gpl code or anything, they deal with just small inputs and outputs and check the memory somehow.
Of course they don't contain any gpl code or anything, they deal with just small inputs and outputs and check the memory somehow.
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Lindir The Green
- Posts: 815
- Joined: 04 May 2005, 15:09