Scope of the GPL for mods

[Warlord Zsinj]

Yeah, you get the gist of what I'm saying, KDR.

Whether or not I say yes or no is irrelevant, as I'd approach it case-by-case - the point is that I want the control to remain in my hands.

Which therefore means that I cannot (and don't) intend to GPL my mod.

The question then asks, how much content that other people have made (such as widgets), that is GPL'ed, does that prevent me from using in SWS? All of it?

[Zpock]

The question then asks, how much content that other people have made (such as widgets), that is GPL'ed, does that prevent me from using in SWS? All of it?

Isn't the answer obvious?

If you want to use others stuff that's GPL:d, you let other's use your own stuff in turn.

If you don't want others to use your stuff, you, as you put it, "put in the hard yards" to make your own instead of taking GPLd things.

[Tobi]

Of course you can always just ask the author (just as you should do if it has no license at all). If the author gives you explicit permission to include his GPL thing into your non-GPL mod all is fine...

[tombom]

Isn't the answer obvious?

If you want to use others stuff that's GPL:d, you let other's use your own stuff in turn.

If you don't want others to use your stuff, you, as you put it, "put in the hard yards" to make your own instead of taking GPLd things.

Yeah, if you're seriously saying "jeez I want to use this cool GPLed stuff in my mod but I don't want to GPL any of the stuff in it", you've discovered one of the reasons why GPL was made.

Although Tobi is right as well.

[AF]

indeed however it has to be a written exemption taking a certain form. Theres a copy on the GNU GPl website were you replace XYZ and ABC with the appropriate names.

The exemption notice also has to be bundled for each and every file exempted, so 10 models, 10 exemptions, each referencing that specific model file.

The exempted material is still GPL so anyone using your mod would need an exemption notice too or they have to remove the material from your mod to create any derivative works of it, or GPL (compatible licence) any mod that uses the exempted material. However whoever has been granted the exemption is free of any issues.

[Felix the Cat]

indeed however it has to be a written exemption taking a certain form. Theres a copy on the GNU GPl website were you replace XYZ and ABC with the appropriate names.

The exemption notice also has to be bundled for each and every file exempted, so 10 models, 10 exemptions, each referencing that specific model file.

The exempted material is still GPL so anyone using your mod would need an exemption notice too or they have to remove the material from your mod to create any derivative works of it, or GPL (compatible licence) any mod that uses the exempted material. However whoever has been granted the exemption is free of any issues.

We've already established that it's more about community standards than strict legalities, so IMO a simple "I give permission to so-and-so to use my GPL'd content without being subject to the GPL himself" should work.

[AF]

No it wouldn't. It has to be a formal exemption or its worthless.

[Felix the Cat]

No it wouldn't. It has to be a formal exemption or its worthless.

Worthless in a legal sense, but not a community-standards one.

[KDR_11k]

It's not even necessarily worthless in the legal sense, while the FSF would like people to adhere to certain standards they are not the law. Stating "I let person XY use the file in his mod without GPL restrictions" is a license. The copyright holder can grant licenses as he wants. The GPL exemption would be an addendum to licensing the work under the GPL while just giving it without such a formal thing is dual licensing which is pretty common especially among commercial devs (e.g. QQT or the Quake engines are all available as GPL or a commercial license with license fees attached).

[quantum]

Why would it need to be a formal exemption? Contracts generally don't need to be expressed in a specific way.

[Forboding Angel]

Argh said:

Even Forb, who seems to not understand what all this is about at all, other than his anger over my actions in regards to your specific case, has repeatedly said, "take anything I do and do whatever" over and over again, which is probably legitimate proof of his intent to put all of his work in the Public Domain, even though I suspect that, again, if I yanked one of his heightmaps and reworked the textures, I'd never hear the end of it.

No I understand it, I just think it's stupid. This is an OS engine so therefore most stuff to me should be Public Domain, or maybe CC with credit to the author.

Argh, what I do, when I do something special is in part designed to teach, not to show how much better I am. There are very particular things that I do that are simply designed to help others.

If you yanked one of my heightmaps, you wouldn't hear anything from me, but many many others would recognize the heightmap and probably give you shit for it. However, if you were to try and rework my textures for a map... good luck. You'll need a license for l3dt, and then you'll have to figure out how to use it, and you will need a lot of time to figure things out...

The point is, yes, you could do it, but it would be far too much trouble that the joke would be on you In the event that you took one of my heightmaps and made a new map with it, once again, more power to you and good luck. I firmly believe that if one of my maps was effectively "stolen", that I could outtexture anyone trying to steal it. I am a grunt work fanatic, ask smoth, I spent 8 hours straight drawing in Whakamatunga Riri BY HAND. If you're gonna go up against someone when they have a passion for what they do, you have to figure out how much time you are willing to devote to said venture. I am maniacial over very few things, but mapping happens to be one of them.

Don't forget Argh, I released 9 of my climates for l3dt to be released with l3dt. THat is basically handing my mapping style to everyone on a silver platter. Now that was very hard for me to do, but I told myself that no matter what, I would still be able to outdo someone that had my tricks figured out.


*later*
Meh, reading back it makes me sound like I'm just tooting my own horn. I was jsut trying to relate why I wasn't worried about that particular scenario.
.
BTW I had planned to make my mod Public Domain when it is finished. Getting there, slowly but surely.

[AF]

Contracts that dont are generally full of potential loopholes and technicalities. Its best to use nice clear formal language from the start.

[Felix the Cat]

Contracts that dont are generally full of potential loopholes and technicalities. Its best to use nice clear formal language from the start.

But as a community, we aren't concerned with making sure things stand up to the lawyer test, but rather that the creator's intent is served.

[AF]

Replace judge with community, lawyers with posters, and court case with thread and media circus with flame war. You'll quickly realize they're very similar and a legal technicality that lawyers would argue over is a logical technicality 2 posters could argue over for a long time.

In the end community opinion (judge/jury) places pressure on the person deemed in the right, and the other party is either punished (sentencing) e.g. removal of files from UF and forum moderation, or dismissed out of hand (thrown out of court).

Of course if your content somehow managed to find its way into that multimillion dollar game who though pinching a bit of content from some obscure small time mod is ok, or that little kid has a rich daddy with a big wallet and no brains, you'll be kicking yourself for loosing out.

[rcdraco]

Why the hell does ANYONE CARE...

God for a free project we are all so god darn caught up in the freaking legal implications of everything. Jesus people, this is like GPLing your freaking D&D campaigne setting.

WE are working on content for a free game, most of the modders are making stuff mostly for themselves, but are willing to share with others, so that hopefully alot of people can enjoy the experience. You would think in a setting like that there would be practically no animosity, no bickering, and certainly no complicated discussions of legal issues.

Yet this community is rife with sects/factions groups of people who get extremely pissed off when someone counters their views.. We have people badmouthing mods and other things all over the place. Playing a certain mod is like rooting for a certain sports team, you have to be careful where you mention it or you get verbal abuse. WHY is this.. were not in a competition, there is no goal here except fun.. you dont win anything if your mod is popular, or your content cool and refreshing. NO money is to be had or made. What are we arguing about, the legal ramifications of someone stealing FREE content from a FREE game.. and how we can protect ourselves.. GUESS WHAT PEOPLE we cant, everyone here should realize right now that given the nature of the internets if someone wants to pirate/steal/copy/warez or what have you a piece of software no one is really going to be able to stop them, unless they go out and publicise it.

We cannot stop people from borrowing, stealing, or taking content, we can ask for people to give credit, we can shun those who would not do so. But really we cant stop them, not physically. All this GPL/Licenceing nonsense accomplishes is to give people who want to share and help a serious headache. Because instead of just being able to give crap away with little asking in return we have hamstrung ourselves will all sorts of red tape and licencing issues. WHY.. why the hell does it matter so much.. I mean I dont want to get anyone down, but the only really serious issue we could ever have is legal call down from an actual company, either about us using their content, or about them stealing our content. But for the love of peet people lets not kid ourselves, there is NOTHING in the entirety of the spring community content, or codewise, that an actual company would even consider stealing. There is also no way in hell that a small time company could take it and make a breakthrough into the market and compete with professional hype and competition.

So springs legal worries come down to.. we might get a cease and decist for using other peoples content.. well thats simple to solve.. minimize the use of other peoples content.. Other than that, we really need to get our heads out of our collective asses here and realize this is all for fun, not a competition, and honestly even the best stuff we make is still just hobby work. We are not hotshots.. the work weve done here is cool, but its still just a hobby and lets stop being so freaking serious about all this crap...

I vote that GPL is not a topic for discussion anymore, it kills the whole community, and no, I never released as GPL, I know it has rules, my rule is that if I catch you using my stuff, I will hurt you. If you want to release as GPL, big woop. If you are new, just release it, people aren't jackasses like you might think.

[Peet]

I vote that GPL is not a topic for discussion anymore, it kills the whole community, and no, I never released as GPL, I know it has rules, my rule is that if I catch you using my stuff, I will hurt you.

I don't really care What people do with anything I make, they can credit me or not, being that most players know by now what I have made.

:\
Licenses can be good to quash...slight..ambiguities.

[Felix the Cat]

Replace judge with community, lawyers with posters, and court case with thread and media circus with flame war. You'll quickly realize they're very similar and a legal technicality that lawyers would argue over is a logical technicality 2 posters could argue over for a long time.

In the end community opinion (judge/jury) places pressure on the person deemed in the right, and the other party is either punished (sentencing) e.g. removal of files from UF and forum moderation, or dismissed out of hand (thrown out of court).

Of course if your content somehow managed to find its way into that multimillion dollar game who though pinching a bit of content from some obscure small time mod is ok, or that little kid has a rich daddy with a big wallet and no brains, you'll be kicking yourself for loosing out.

You're just arguing for the sake of arguing, aren't you?

If I were to make a bunch of Lua scripts, GPL them, and then clearly state "AF is granted an exception from the GPL license, he may modify and use them in whatever way he sees fit, but may not distribute any unmodified or modified versions of them without my prior permission", it's pretty clear what I mean. I'm sure you could get the Hon. Ed Lolington in here to pick apart the exemption to pieces on technical legal grounds, but it seems that what we have been arguing about the most is the intent of the creators of GPLd content.

If some people didn't automatically think "GPL is the open-source license" and slap a GPL on their stuff without ever thinking about the ramifications, we wouldn't have this problem. As it is, the intent of the content creators is unclear, and the intent of the GPL itself as applied to mods is unclear because the content creators have refused to clarify their licenses. (To name names, Argh is one who GPLd content and then did not clarify his intent when an issue arose; rather, he chose to argue the intent of the GPL rather than state his own intent.)

[KDR_11k]

So, um, what's going to happen with the gadget handler now? I believe the code has been sufficiently tested so it can go into the base files now, right?

BTW, Argh was clear on his GPL use: It applied only to his COB/BOS code, all other parts were released as CC.

[Felix the Cat]

So, um, what's going to happen with the gadget handler now? I believe the code has been sufficiently tested so it can go into the base files now, right?

BTW, Argh was clear on his GPL use: It applied only to his COB/BOS code, all other parts were released as CC.

BUT, what was his intention when he used the GPL? Did he intend for it to infect others' entire mods or not? That's what was unclear, and what was never answered.

[KDR_11k]

He told me the only reason it's not in the base dir already was because it was considered the equivalent of beta code.