Proposal for licence change to MIT

[nevercast]

This is a proposal to change the licence of OpenBlocks mod from LGPLv3 to the MIT licence, a much smaller more open licence.

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2013 OpenMods Team

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of
the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR
COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER
IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

I will leave this proposal here for one week for thoughts and opinions, if none of the contributors have a problem with this change I'll make the change on Tuesday, 22nd October, GMT+12.

[nevercast]

@mikeemoo @boq @Vexatos @SinZ163 @wooky @crafteverywhere @tterrag1098 @Alxandr @Asajz @Xiretza @lyqyd

[mikeemoo]

You'll never match the speed of teh Mikeemoo!

[tterrag1098]

I'm not so sure about the "selling" part that the license grants the right for others to do. Not only does it seem wrong, but is against Mojang ToS.

[mikeemoo]

I'm happy to sit back and let you guys discuss this. I'm good with whatever the outcome is, providing EVERYONE agrees with it. If they don't, we stay as we are.

[teamvista]

These links might help when deciding to change licenses:

http://www.tldrlegal.com/license/mit-license Very liberal. Basically, you can do whatever you want as long as you include the original copyright.

http://www.tldrlegal.com/license/gnu-lesser-general-public-license-v3-(lgpl-3.0) You may copy, distribute and modify the software provided that modifications are open source. However, software that includes the license may release under a different license.

[tterrag1098]

@teamvista Honestly the MIT license sounds fine (as opensource is the point of OpenMods), as long as the part about selling it is removed.

[teamvista]

@tterrag1098 As far as I know, there are no software licenses that exclusively forbid non-commercial usage (unless you count the Creative Commons licenses, which are not recommended for software). Also, as a collection of mods, I don't think we have to worry about such usage unless the OpenMods team (or other third party) makes merchandise pertaining to its mods.

So in this situation, either of the licenses seem OK to me. Both consider attribution and share-alike, though the current LGPL3 license exhibits tighter control over commerciality.

I mean if we wanted, we could add a clause to the MIT license stating "the Software shall not be provided or used in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation" but IMHO either license is fine as is.

[tterrag1098]

Or simply state that these rules fall back on the Mojang ToS. Either way is fine with me.

EDIT: Also, I'm not so concerned about preventing monetization, but rather explicitly allowing it, as that is what violates Mojang's terms.

[Alxandr]

Isn't the commercial question more of a "would anyone care if somebody started printing openblocks/mods/peripherals on t-shirts"? On Oct 15, 2013 1:23 AM, "tterrag1098" notifications@github.com wrote:

Or simply state that these rules fall back on the Mojang ToS. Either way is fine with me.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/OpenMods/OpenBlocks/issues/114#issuecomment-26297181 .

[teamvista]

@Alxandr That's kind of what I just said.

I don't think we have to worry about such usage unless the OpenMods team (or other third party) makes merchandise pertaining to its mods.

[mikeemoo]

I've been thinking about doing some openmods tshirts! havent decided what to use any proceeds for though! Maybe cover hosting of jenkins or something like that. I wonder if this is something to consider.

[Alxandr]

Yeah, I thought I'd just state it a bit more explicitly, so to make sure everyone was on the same page (or I included everyone in my misunderstanding xD).

Anyways, I don't really mind any license. If I make a block, and somebody makes t-shirts off it, I don't really care. Especially if the money goes to run Jenkins. If money was what I wanted, I would not look to join/help openmods. On Oct 15, 2013 1:27 AM, "teamvista" notifications@github.com wrote:

@Alxandr https://github.com/Alxandr That's kind of what I just said.

I don't think we have to worry about such usage unless the OpenMods team (or other third party) makes merchandise pertaining to its mods.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/OpenMods/OpenBlocks/issues/114#issuecomment-26297362 .

[tterrag1098]

One last comment, because I think we've addressed almost everything, is that I am in no way a major contributor to this mod. But I appreciate that I have a place in this decision (We are probably taking this too seriously :P). Anyways, I think the MIT license is fine, as long as we don't give explicit permission to monetize. We don't have to prevent it, just not advocate it.

[nevercast]

I don't think a mod being monetized imposes any issues as far as Mojang terms go.

Do not distribute anything we've made. This includes, but not limited to, 
the client or the server software for the game. 
This also includes modified versions of anything we've made

• https://minecraft.net/terms

It specifically says we cannot sell or distribute anything THEY have made. There is no mention about stuff that other parties have made, and since we are not distributing Minecraft with the mod, we wont have any issues; I mean you can already buy FTB merch.

[tterrag1098]

"These Guidelines cover the use of the Minecraft Brand and Minecraft Assets. For these purposes, therefore when we refer to:

• the Minecraft Name what we mean is the name Minecraft and any confusingly similar name;
• the Minecraft Brand what we mean is the Minecraft Name and the related logos and distinctive characteristics of the Minecraft;
• the Minecraft Assets what we mean is the code, software, graphics, textures, sound and audio from Minecraft."

FTB merch is original artwork. Selling off a modpack or this mod in particular would kind of include Mojang code. Just best to be safe, i guess.

[nevercast]

This falls under the case of interop, the code we use is purely API's, and so we are not actually distributing any of Mojang's code, only references to their stuff.

Also from what I gather Mojang is fairly relaxed about it, they just want to make sure their stuff is not bootlegged. If someone was to 'Buy' OpenBlocks,

• 1) They would be an idiot
• 2) They would still not have bought anything belonging to Mojang or Minecraft.

[nevercast]

Something that should be referenced is that https://minecraft.net/brand actually has a section on Commercial.

[nevercast]

As far as I can see, there is only one possible issue and that is the likeness between the GUIs we use and those of Minecraft. But then again, we are not talking about commercialising the actual mod, but merchandise unrelated to the code base.

On that note I think it's fine to leave MIT intact and not add an exception regarding monetization

[tterrag1098]

Well, then I say go ahead. Though I still think we should remove the clause about sales. Up to @mikeemoo.

[teamvista]

Honestly, I don't think we have to worry about anyone buying the code to OpenMods. It's open source and a Minecraft mod. I'll have to agree with nevercast on this one.

And to be fair, if you really wanted to clarify, you could email them about it.

[lyqyd]

MIT's fine with me.

[Xiretza]

I really don't care about it, I only made a few translations. So go ahead.

[Vexatos]

Ditto.

[teamvista]

@nevercast Is this resolved yet?

[nevercast]

I believe it is sir.