Ironsight

[BielBdeLuna]

additions for an iron sight button in the weapons

[BielBdeLuna]

what about a CC license? although this code, but maybe the non-code assets could be set as some of the CC licenses?

[BielBdeLuna]

most of the script in the assets branch is distributed unlicensed which is wrong, at east give it Daniel's license your work could be stolen and re-licensed without you knowing it, and then you could be sued for "stole the works of others" even if you created your work from scratch and the "works of others" is a copy of yours re-licensed.

anyway, I do want to push for a GPL license in my assets. GPL doesn't prevent anyone to make money from my assets, specially if those are base assets, they can do their sub-classes as closed as they want. Also, if they want it, they can ask for permission in order to change my license to a closed one. if they don't have a problem asking I have no problem granting that.

[kortemik]

I would like us to use CC license with BY (Attribution only) in assets.. GPL assets are a bit hard for some to cope with, like in scripts even if one inherits from a file then s/he has to use GPL too.. LGPL would be copeable but then again, how would LGPL behave if one builds a container containing both our assets and their own? Would that go under distribute medium as the container is extractable?

[DanielGibson]

most of the script in the assets branch is distributed unlicensed which is wrong, at east give it Daniel's license your work could be stolen and re-licensed without you knowing it, and then you could be sued for "stole the works of others" even if you created your work from scratch and the "works of others" is a copy of yours re-licensed.

I really doubt that this is a plausible scenario. I put my copyright in those files and via git history it's public and obvious when I created them, so no one can really sue me after copying them and putting their own (C) on them.
At least not any more than they could with a GPL license (they could just copy my code, remove my copyright and the license header and claim they invented it in that case, too)

Just to clarify: This is not about the C++ code, but only about the stuff in base/ (textures, materials, definitions, scripts, ...)

These are base assets. nothing great, just the minimum to get a doom3-engine based game running. I'd like to make that as painless as possible for potential users, without having to worry about the license of single scripts they're reusing/adapting.

Also, if they want it, they can ask for permission in order to change my license to a closed one.

This is not viable for a project like OpenTech. In the end we would possibly have dozens of contributers that contributed some materials, scripts, ... that someone creating a commercial game would have to ask.
Experience shows that this is very difficult, especially after a few years, when some contributers disappear from the scene (and sometimes, sadly, from the world).
Thus I'd like to use a very permissive license right from the start.

LGPL is not an option really, it's for libraries you link against, not for assets. No idea how one would even apply the LGPL to scripts and such.

[BielBdeLuna]

you might find it more troublesome when you start developing the AI FSM, the scripting then looks like c++ codeand you want to set it on a WTF licence? that can be a lot of work to give without any due credit.

and what is the problem of distributing the source code and assets along the original product? it's not like you're forced to distribute it for free! once you pay for the product you have the product and the assets (at least those that are GPL, the others can be as closed as you want)

for GPL water code in the darkmod Motorsep an I went on to find the original authors or someone in the Darkmod team in order to have their permission, the water was GPL but it wasn't stated in the files as the dark mod started with SDK files which weren't GPL at that time. Also with GPL since you don't have to create the thing at least having the hassle of searching the author to get permission doesn't seem that big a penalty isn't it?

if the author is dead, GPL doesn't give powers to any heir on the distributed code, so why is any worse?

@kortemik: but you don't inherit the license of a file if it's GPL, you inherit it's data. the right hand can be GPL while the left hand is closed to death, as long as you don't distribute their code outside the boundaries of their license, you are allright, and can use both codes alongside.

C'mon guys, GPL wasn't meant to stop anyone from developing anything but to help others refine and re-create the GPL licensed stuff.

[DanielGibson]

The goal of OpenTech is not to create a game, but an engine/SDK. So I don't think we'll provide very complicated AI scripts, maybe some basics ones that show how to use the interfaces (same for weapons).

Also with GPL since you don't have to create the thing at least having the hassle of searching the author to get permission doesn't seem that big a penalty isn't it?

If it's dozens of small things it is.

if the author is dead, GPL doesn't give powers to any heir on the distributed code, so why is any worse?

not sure I understand that sentence, but if the author is dead it will be very hard to get a permission to re-license things (as you suggested with "Also, if they want it, they can ask for permission in order to change my license to a closed one.")

I think relicensing later is bad/hard, so I'd like to avoid the need for relicensing by choosing a very liberal license for this stuff in the first place.

come on, we're only talking about very simple scripts here, I'm not even sure they'd meet the "threshold of originality".

If in the future we should decide to make a proper "demo game" with high-quality levels, enemies (+AI), weapons, textures, ... that stuff can certainly be put under a more restrictive license (and should probably be in a different repository anyway)

[BielBdeLuna]

fine, go ahead change the license in my PR if you want, or we will never end up this conversation.

[DanielGibson]

If you don't like the WTFPL, we could also agree on using CC0 or maybe the zlib-license which seem a bit more "official" :)

[BielBdeLuna]

no, go ahead with the WTFPL at least let all the assets have the same lic.

besides this, shouldn't we add this lic. to all the script files, most of them doesn't have any lic. so at least have something.

[BielBdeLuna]

we'll discuss this again when I finish up my "GPL" AI I'm currently working on: http://idtechforums.fuzzylogicinc.com/index.php?topic=133.0

I still think giving up all our valuable time and energy for free with any need for even a credit, is very disrespectful for our-selves, therefore I don't agree with CC0.

[DanielGibson]

yeah, I think we should add it to all text files that allow comments. that's not possible with images, of course, but we could just mention in the COPYING.TXT that they're also under WTFPL.

Regarding your GPL AI: If you create nontrivial AI scripts then putting them under a more restrictive license is fine with me.
I just want the simple stuff to be very free :)

I still think giving up all our valuable time and energy for free with any need for even a credit, is very disrespectful for our-selves

I think we spend most of the time with C++ Code, that is under GPLv3 and thus will give us credit. I consider these basic scripts just simple glue between the C++ engine and game-specific assets.

[DanielGibson]

And we should also put contributors in a contributors list, so there is some credit besides the WTFPL-line in the scripts.

Oh btw, does this mean you're also OK with changing the license of the Portal-Sky scripts/defs/materials/textures under WTFPL?

And thanks a lot for changing your mind :-)

[BielBdeLuna]

yes, change the portal sky scripts and definitions. at least the lic. is consistent amongst our assets, the textures tough, let's not put them in CC0 as they are dev textures, they are non-esential for a game developer to distribute, so they can use the GPLv3 version and not distribute them outside it, and since they are so simple they can always do their own... hah! gotcha! :P

[DanielGibson]

they'd still have to make sure not to redistribute them..
I actually recreated most doom3 editor textures under WTFPL, just to eliminate this problem (the only ones I didn't recreate were already released to the public domain).

Let's not create license "traps" by mixing WTFPL assets with ones under a much more restrictive license. For nontrivial stuff like your GPL AI we might create a base/GPL/ directory, just to make this very obvious for users.

[BielBdeLuna]

the problem with base/GPL/ dir is that this means essentially create two families of code if you end up using the more complex of the two why bother with the other?

I would think that using a base of WTFPL works (like all the base scripts and the main scripts should suffice to make the engine usable

but then on the guns scripts and the monster AI and the utils scripts you could have GPL stuff

on the non-script-nor-definitions assets I plan to eventually make some cars (I had some code for cars back in dhewm3 times, and used some freesounds sounds as well did some images for the cars) so people could make Rage-like or completely car-centric games within the engine. those assets should be quite time-expensive to produce or have some levels to prove several different game-plays, first person d3 like games but also 3d person uncharted/assasin's creed-esque games, those levels shouldn't be counted as a "game" but should be quite time consuming assets to create, so distributing them as CC0 is a no-no for me.

[BielBdeLuna]

maybe devising a way to compartmentalise the content could be an answer, like they did with OpenAerna were some stuff was put in paks that could be redistributed independently than the rest of the project, or how different missions in the Darkmod add to the base games the independently needed content.

[DanielGibson]

I would think that using a base of WTFPL works (like all the base scripts and the main scripts should suffice to make the engine usable but then on the guns scripts and the monster AI and the utils scripts you could have GPL stuff

this is essentially the idea, except that maybe having very simple weapon/monster examples under WTFPL would be nice too, so projects that don't want to use the GPL scripts at least have a starting point.
in practice this could mean that we start some very simple scripts that somehow make the weapon/monster do something and release those under WTFPL, while later iterations of those scripts with more complex logic are under GPL

[BielBdeLuna]

this is downright evil! :) I updated the lic to WTFPL2, do I merge?

[DanielGibson]

uhh one small thing I just noticed: you indented with spaces, but we usually use tabs for that, so with tabsize != 4 it looks strange.

but maybe we should just run this astyle script again sometime...

[BielBdeLuna]

can you run it, I edited it form github itself, cause I'm coding something else in my repo in my hdd.

[DanielGibson]

I'll just merge it for now, will run astyle later