Spring RTS Engine

That would end with: One buys->gives to a friend->who gives to a friend->gives to a friend->who gives to a friend->gives to a friend->who gives to a friend->gives to a friend->who gives to a friend->gives to a friend->who gives to a friend->gives to a friend->who gives to a friend->gives to a friend->who gives to a friend->gives to a friend->who gives to a friend
Would that be piracy?

You can sell GPL stuff, many people do it, it is legal if you actually bother to read it which no doubt a million of you on this forum have not. You just have to give the source and gpl license along with it.

IMO it would be awesome if someone sold a game using the spring engine!

So peepz, back to work

SwiftSpear wrote:

smoth wrote:Nothing is near sellable and if bandai wanted to sell gundam rts all I would ask in return is some content and maybe some action figures .

Smoth develops games on the barter system

well, figures for reference and content such as, models, voice and sound effect clips. That would help me speed up my development and produce gundam much faster. Fact of the matter is that gundam's current hangup is graphic and sound related. Kdr has done some great lua script work for the resource system, we are testing a new booster system which is currently cob based AND he made some models! However, the main issue I see is that for the next year gundam will primarily need the production of content. Past that the rest is programing lua and balancing. If I had the content bandai has I would already have 3 more factions.

Selling spring GPL/CC content/engine is legal (TA-based or modder-private content isn't). But it's a bad idea, at least for online multiplayer gaming, since it would mean players connecting with the masterserver and finding out
1) that, since the source is open, the game is trivial to cheat on
2) that all the other players play for free, and
3) that the experience is kinda buggy, since it was developed by hobbyists

But many OSS projects have been transmogrified into commercial efforts by external developers - look at Blood Toll (a put-your-money-where-your-mouth is FPS game where you can place bets on the outcome, based on the Cube engine).

TBH the major problem is the question whether you may combine commercial content with GPLed code in one installer (itself being GPLed, even).

Selling a mod under whichever license, no problem. Selling Spring (under GPL license), no problem. But selling both as if it's one single work (ie. combined in the same installer on the same CD in the same package) (as opposed to mere aggregation, which is explicitly allowed by the GPL) isn't allowed IIRC.

Still, one could argue that since it supports other mods it is not a single work but mere aggregation: the fact that you can argue about it is exactly the problem.

(but IANAL and it's quite a while ago I read the GPL for the last time)

You could explicitly exempt that scenario as the project leader after finding a consensus, like SJ did with AIs

People barely play the high quality copyright-free mods that are out there (e&e, pure, gundam, etc).. I have serious doubts that people would pay for similar high quality mods, when they don't even play the free ones.

As pointed out in this thread already, people often don't play free stuff BECAUSE it is free (they argue it must be crap because it's free.)

If you make it cost them 20 bucks they would play it, because it would be a waste of their money otherwise.

Tobi wrote:As pointed out in this thread already, people often don't play free stuff BECAUSE it is free (they argue it must be crap because it's free.)

If you make it cost them 20 bucks they would play it, because it would be a waste of their money otherwise.

How would you convince them to spend 20 bucks though ?

That's the problem of the marketing people of those modders

Tobi wrote:That's the problem of the marketing people of those modders

Or, currently, my problem for getting people to play the free games we have now.

Even if pushing sales by creating a monetary value for spring might increase user base... it's ultimately going to cause us alot of problems trying to figure out what to do with the cash

I'm against the selling of spring really for no other reason. IMO, a huge part of the respectability and validity of this project is embedded in the non profit nature of what we do here.

SwiftSpear wrote:Even if pushing sales by creating a monetary value for spring might increase user base... it's ultimately going to cause us alot of problems trying to figure out what to do with the cash

Proper moderation tools, such as ICBMs and mercenaries.

Presumably a mod team selling mod content wouldn't be involved with the non-profit status of the engine project itself.

SwiftSpear wrote:Even if pushing sales by creating a monetary value for spring might increase user base... it's ultimately going to cause us alot of problems trying to figure out what to do with the cash

Hosting contests, supporting developers, paying for servers, giving it to me, hosting a Spring convention, giving it to me, getting new servers, and giving it to me.

SwiftSpear wrote:Even if pushing sales by creating a monetary value for spring might increase user base... it's ultimately going to cause us alot of problems trying to figure out what to do with the cash

I'm against the selling of spring really for no other reason. IMO, a huge part of the respectability and validity of this project is embedded in the non profit nature of what we do here.

Actually I plan to give the proceeds to the store for compensation for the free advertising etc. Might charge 3 bucks to to put more of a monetary value on it.

neddiedrow wrote:

Tobi wrote:That's the problem of the marketing people of those modders

Or, currently, my problem for getting people to play the free games we have now.

With both, Springs major obstacle is advertising. I think Forb has the right idea though. If we were to charge money, it could go straight back into advertising. Nobody makes a profit, so there is no money to distribute.

However, Swift does bring up a serious issue. As soon as you put money on the table, everyone is wondering where their share is. It would bring greed into the community, even more infighting and competition.

If it is contained within a single mod though most of the fallout would probably be internal (as long as we are all civil and respect their right to make money while we give away similiar products for free- and that in the long term that actually helps us whenever they advertise).

Well the way I'm planning it... The money would be directly be absorbed back into the comp store and I would not see a dime. That would be their "Fee" for advertising (Hell letting me put a big ass spring poster in the window... Dat sum advertiseing!). That way there is no direct gain for myself even though it was charged for my time packaging and printing the cds.

Just makes it simple for me, because I am not looking to gain monetarily for myself at all. I work with spring because I like to, not because I have some sort of secret plan to get rich.

Tobi wrote:TBH the major problem is the question whether you may combine commercial content with GPLed code in one installer (itself being GPLed, even).

Selling a mod under whichever license, no problem. Selling Spring (under GPL license), no problem. But selling both as if it's one single work (ie. combined in the same installer on the same CD in the same package) (as opposed to mere aggregation, which is explicitly allowed by the GPL) isn't allowed IIRC.

Still, one could argue that since it supports other mods it is not a single work but mere aggregation: the fact that you can argue about it is exactly the problem.

(but IANAL and it's quite a while ago I read the GPL for the last time)

You are right, you can sell all GPL content, you can sell all non GPL content (as long as the non-gpl license allows it of course) but you cannot put them together as the GPL forbids it, like if i did php work, included a GPL library in my work and tried to sell, nope, would have to release under GPL.