On Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 20:00:17 UTC, Mineko wrote:
On Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 19:38:09 UTC, Paulo Pinto
wrote:
as long as the engine itself is free and redistributed intact
then everything is fine.
Then you are probably looking at a LGPL license. I'm not gonna
explain in deep the differences but keeping it short:
If a library is GPL, then the whole project must be redistributed
as GPL software. If someone uses your code and uses in a broader
project, the whole project would need to be GPL too.
If a library is LGPL, then the modified library must be
redistributed as LGPL library. If someone uses and/or modifies
your library in a broader project, only the library will need to
be redistributed as open.
EG: one takes your game engine and links it against some other
libraries to make a full game (eg: adding networking, scripting
engine, etc). If the license is LGPL, everything is fine. If
license is GPL, he will need to release everything as GPL.
Something this isn't even possible due to license
incompatibilities. However, if he modifies your library (like,
adds something to rendering routines), he has to release the
modified code, doesn't matter if it's GPL or LGPL.
Last but not least, the copyright holder (you) can relicense the
work at any time.