On Wednesday, 20 September 2006 at 18:36, Christian Vest Hansen wrote:
> Forgot to mention that I think this:
>
> >The readme says: "provided as is with no guarantees."
> >Can't we use that as a license?
> sounds like the obvious thing to do, provided it is GPL compatible.
Why GPL compatible? The data could have another license (but for
practical reasons, see below).
> And since it impose no restrictions that the GPL does not impose,
> chances are that it is GPL compatible (though I'm not the one to
> guarentee this!!!)
That was my interpretation as well. The next step I'd take is to
actually use the GPL for the data (as there are no restrictions imposed
we can just relicense it to GPL), with a little clarification of how to
apply it to the data (since the GPL is mainly written with source code
in mind).
Why the GPL for the data? Because there is a hazy line between source
and data in Warzone. Are the scripts the engine uses data or source
code? Another point that wasn't clarified in the README. And for general
consistency, else we need to decide on what license the data should
have, if we accept contributions with other licenses... too much hassle
in my eyes.
Clarification on using the GPL for data: Data is (generally speaking)
just a binary blob without a defined "source code". So, if we get, for
example, a PNG file, that file can be modified and distributed with no
further restrictions, and, unless we also get the layered Gimp file (or
whatever was used to make the PNG), the file has no source.
Of course we should encourage people to also share their source
material, but that's no requirement in my eyes. (For example, there are
image libraries where you are allowed to use the images in you own work
(composites) which can be freely resistributed, but you are not allowed
to distribute the images themselves.)
Thinking about it, that sounds suspiciously like the "I want to use a
closed source library" question, and it is getting close to the limits
of the GPL, but as you can edit a PNG file without any problems
(contrary to a compiled program), I think it's still acceptable (we just
define the PNG file to be its own source - contrary to a JPG, that needs
a version without lossy compression as source).
--
I have gained this by philosophy:
that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
-- Aristotle
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