Gear Commander Materials Released as CC NC 2.5

[bobthedinosaur]

I talked to Mats ( Centurion ) some time in December about his decision on release the unfinished contents on the game he was working on for spring known as Gear Commander. He and I agreed that CC NC 2.5 sounds reasonable, unfortunately I couldn't find the materials, until earlier this week. So here they are.


Read the license and and follow the distributing rules.


Thanks,
bob

[hrmph]

Those were some really nice models from what I remember. It is a shame he disappeared before finishing the project.

[Neddie]

He also disappeared from SupCom, if I recall.

[Saktoth]

CC NC conflicts with the GNU GPL (Since the ability to sell a GPL derived work, as long as you also offer the source for free, is considered one of the 'freedoms' offered by the GPL).

However, good to see more usable content.

[bobthedinosaur]

You can't modify under GNU GPL. These materials are not finished and would therefore be worthless, under it.

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

From:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

[smoth]

changing the license not the content covered under gpl.

[Saktoth]

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing (the document) is not allowed.

Can you change all the code and content covered by the GPL, chop them up, put them in something else, mix them around, and modify them? Yes. In fact, you are compelled under the GPL to offer the source code so that people can do this.

Can you change the licence? Offer it under Public Domain, incorporate it into closed-source software, offer it under another licence that is not the GNU GPL or equivalent? No. Thats what this clause forbids. CC-NC has an identical clause.

[bobthedinosaur]

Ah... gotcha. I'll talk to centurion about this.

I am not very good with the copyrights versions. What is the most flexible but commercially restricted copy rights?

Also: If GPL conflicts with CCNC why bother have 2?

[Neddie]

CC-NC. You had it right the first time.

[SeanHeron]

In my opinion you're set up pretty well with either of the two creative-commons non-commercial licences, for what you're looking for.
I'm not aware of any other licence that disallows commercial use that is as popular / widely used.

Not sure on what you meant regarding one of GPL and CC-NC being superfluous - the GNU-GPL has quite a different set of restrictions and freedoms. One of the larger is that you are allowed to sell GPL licenced stuff.
(maybe you misunderstood Satiriks statement "CC-NC has identical clauses". - I think that was just referring to people not being allowed to arbitrarily change the licence terms (which both licences have in common).

[Saktoth]

I am not very good with the copyrights versions. What is the most flexible but commercially restricted copy rights?

The GPL allows commercial distribution. That is expressly one of the 'freedoms' offered under the licence, the freedom to sell data incorporating the content. This is why the GPL and CC-NC conflict.

However, you must also still offer the source code for free, so ultimately, people can still get the work for free if they want to.

Why even bother with this? Well, firstly so you can give out CD's and recoup some of the costs of doing so.

Secondly so that work containing GPL software can be distributed as part of a package that is for sale, alongside non-GPL software.

The GPL still forces you to give away the GPL components and any modifications to them for free, though.

[Argh]

Have any of you guys even bothered looking at the art assets, and making sure they aren't just close copies of Heavy Gear's copyrighted work? If true, this whole conversation's moot; you can't assert copyright over things you don't actually have any rights to, or restrict others' use of same (only the copyright holder can do so).

[EDIT]Took a quick look. So far as I can see, only the barracks and maybe the infantry would be fair game; the rest of it's clearly derivative of the Heavy Gear designs, and it can't be licensed CC-NC, GPL, PD or anything but (C) Dream Pod 9, 2010.

I am sorry in advance, if people were hoping to get their hands on this stuff- for free projects where you want to prominently credit Dream Pod 9 and hope they don't C&D you, it would be OK. For GPL or Open Source projects, there's no legal use for these files, whether commercial or not.[/EDIT]

[smoth]

it is heavy gear units. of course it is heavy gear designs.... argh how did you miss that part.

[Argh]

Well, IDK, I guess that pointing out that people cannot assert copyright over stuff they don't own, and what the legal state of the work actually is... seemed pretty much on point, tbh.

Sorry if it seems confusing or beside the point; from where I sit, it is the point.

Basically, Centurian gets his wish granted (there are no legitimate uses of this stuff in a GPL or commercial context), and now we can move on to whether anybody is going to finish a Heavy Gear game some day, instead of fretting about license stuff

[bobthedinosaur]

These is no source code to release.
And "no" to the commercial.

Sorry.

[Argh]

That's too bad about the source; did he never write any scripts? Maybe I could hack up something quick using a variant of the Lightmech code for the Gears; the layout's pretty similar.

[SeanHeron]

"Source" in the context Saktoth meant it refers to the editable version of the data the Program uses.
Ie for Lua Gadgets, the source and data files are identical - I edit Reinforcements.lua, and load up spring directly.
For Models, 3ds/obj (or similiar) would conventionally be viewed as the source files, while s3o could be seen as "compiled" data files for the program.
With textures it's a bit tricky - as you can edit the dds files, and these are then immediately in use for the engine. I personally would take the view though that your photoshop or Gimp file (which you then normally export - ie "compile") are your actual "source" files.

Basiclly whenever the GNU-GPL is used in a non "computer code which is compiled into binary (executable) code" context, it gets a bit ambigous :/.
(and referring to source code is then certainly a misnomer).

Oh, to finish - all the scripts are in their Argh - mostly both as bos and cob. (which is actually the one sort of Spring data that fits nicely into the "source" - "compiled" format of thinking :D).