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minetest / minetest_game

Minetest Game - A lightweight and well-maintained base for modding [https://github.com/minetest/minetest/]
http://minetest.net/
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The issue of licensing #2197

Closed MoNTE48 closed 6 years ago

MoNTE48 commented 6 years ago

The actions of @paramat on changing the license led to a general confusion. Perhaps @paramat does not have the relevant knowledge and did not have the right to do so. Or the changes were deliberate!

Some mods written by @celeron55 were licensed by LGPLv2.1+. This follows from the text:

either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

In this commit, @paramat changed the license to LGPLv2.1 (WITHOUT +): https://github.com/minetest/minetest_game/commit/7d70d25eeb3e27e7b335437dbb87766398d8f560#diff-4cd1953f1f990c334caac73bfbf5dfefR8

I just discovered this when I completed the work on updating MultiCraft up to the current version of some @celeron55 mods. This question requires: 1) delete all my changes and use the code version BEFORE the @paramat operation. 2) contact @celeron55 and find out whether he gave the right to change the license for his code.

I'm not sure that @paramat had the right to do this. The approval of PR https://github.com/minetest/minetest_game/pull/1278 of this person by some other developer is missing, which clearly indicates the desire of @paramat to forbid the forks with the LGPLv3 license to use the Minetest code.

@rubenwardy you can help with this issue?

rubenwardy commented 6 years ago

This was accidental, the license is LGPLv2.1+

paramat commented 6 years ago

Where in that bucket diff is 'LGPL 2.1+' mentioned? I can't see it anywhere, only 'LGPL 2.1' is mentioned, so i preserved that. I intended to keep the license unchanged. The diff keeps everything identical. I can't even see mention of a '+' at the gnu website. If somehow i made a mistake through lack of in-depth knowledge of licensing i'm sorry for that.

The approval of PR #1278 of this person by some other developer is missing, which clearly indicates the desire of @paramat to forbid the forks with the LGPLv3 license to use the Minetest code.

This counted as trivial so did not require a second approval, that is the developer rules. The whole process was discussed in #1259 Please don't jump to malicious conclusions. It's also obvious that i am not malicious towards MultiCraft.

MoNTE48 commented 6 years ago

@paramat, sorry, I was just a little surprised to see a license incompatible with my fork a minute before the merge. As I said, celeron55 wrote "or (at your option) any later version". This is one of the options to indicate that the author of the code permits the license update from 2.1 to any new version. Some authors on github indicate this as LGPLv2.1+ or LGPLv3+. This "+" means that when the new version of the GNU LGPL comes out, anyone can update it in their fork

rubenwardy commented 6 years ago

"or (at your option) any later version" is part of the default LGPL license, and is there everywhere I can see. Where is the purportedly LGPL bit in that link?

Found it, the readme of bucket should say LGPLv2.1+ not LGPL 2.1

paramat commented 6 years ago

Thanks for explaining.

~~However, if only some people (is this correct?) use '+' to signify 'or (at your option) any later version' then this is not a mistake. Or is it a necessary convention? The text 'or (at your option) any later version' is now in license.txt and the README now displays 'See license.txt for license information.', so it clearly directs to the full and correct license information.~~

paramat commented 6 years ago 
GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

Ok, 'either 2.1 or any later version' so (LGPL 2.1) is not enough.

paramat commented 6 years ago

Mistake also in 'default', 'fire', 'player_api', 'screwdriver', 'stairs', 'vessels', 'walls'.

paramat commented 6 years ago

While we're at it there's still a reference to WTFPL in 'carts' README, needs removing.

paramat commented 6 years ago

PR #2198

paramat commented 6 years ago

Can't join IRC freenode currently, maybe spambot issues.

Concerning the discussion on -dev, the referral to license.txt seems enough to make things specific, so i don't see a problem with having (LGPLv2.1+), (MIT) etc. in the README. Adding the license to every file seems rather overkill and probably not something anyone would consider worth working on. Concerning 'trivial', i was given clear instructions on what to do by rubenwardy.

paramat commented 6 years ago

SmallJoker

the carts mod was also converted fro CC0 to MIT for some reason

That's because MIT was chosen in #1259 as best for the source code licenses.