"As a rule of thumb, I expect colour ramps (as found somewhere in the LPC base assets) to be copyrightable, simply because it is difficult for me as a non-artists to create good ones."
My understanding is that being difficult to create is not sufficient to be copyrightable, but there must be a creative element. I guess one could argue there can be a creative element to a colour palette, though it's not really clear to me...
On anonymity - on the one hand, I agree there is the point that it allows people to be more vicious without having to worry. But I think anonymity is a good thing too, and this episode shows that aspect also: I don't want any risk of my employer being associated with any comments I make, or to be fired because people find out where I work. (I'm guessing this firing happened in states with at-will employment, something I disagree with...)
I think it's a good thing to have some rules about sexual talk in that kind of conference. Perhaps there should be some rules about taking photos of people without their consent...
I guess one catch is that the likes of Disney have no issues with raiding the public domain for content that they then use in derivative works which are locked up for 95 years or more. So a system where some people voluntarily release their content isn't the same as one where it's shorter copyright terms for everyone, and I can see the standard copyleft argument - making something under a GPL-style licence expire after a shorter term just makes it easier for someone else to build a derivative work that's then copyrighted for 95 years, or perhaps indefinitely.
Though I can see it being a good thing in terms of raising awareness, making the point that there are people who believe in shorter terms. Often the debate is polarised as if the only two options are "the current system" and "no copyright everything must be free".
It would also be useful for people releasing content where they don't want to use Free/Open licences (either people doing things commercially - or perhaps people who don't want their work used commercially in the short term).
And it's perhaps a compromise between the two opposed views of GPL vs BSD style licences: I can see that I might say "I'd rather choose GPL, but in 20 years I don't really care what someone does with it, so the copyright might as well expire by then".
It's not true that CC BY-SA requires source to be released (see below). However, it is the case that the CC BY-SA art itself must be relicensed under the same terms, so the issue of "All apple games on the app store must be released under the Apple liscense" may still be true.
I agree with C.Nilsson's reply. Yes, licence incompatibility can be a shame, but I'd argue that things like the locking down of computing devices is certainly in the spirit of what Free copyleft licences were intended to deter (or at least, not support). Still, you are of course free to ask the copyright holders what they think, they may be okay with more liberal licences.
@Gaurav: "The (relatively) easy solution is to release your game both under the GPL (perhaps the source on github) and the Apple license (on the iOS store). So long as the game is also available as GPL, no one can complain."
It may be true that no one complains, but I'm not sure that fixes the issue. The problem isn't availability of source code, it's relicensing under a different term, which would apply even if the files are available elsewhere. (I mean, I can't relicense CC BY-SA art under a proprietary licence - I don't think it's allowed just because I could say "But you can still download the files from Open Game Art"?)
@cjc83486: "This license requires you to release the source your entire project under the same license or one with similar terms, such as the GNU GPL. If you're trying to sell a game, this is probably something you want to avoid, as you will be required to distribute the source code, and your users will be allowed to distribute it as well."
This FAQ is incorrect imo. There is nothing in the CC BY-SA licence text ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode ) that says "or similar" includes the GPL. In fact, the text refers to "Creative Commons Compatible License", defined at http://creativecommons.org/compatiblelicenses , which currently says "Please note that to date, Creative Commons has not approved any licenses for compatibility"!
I think it is a problem of CC BY-SA that the human-readable summary refers to "similar" licences (and indeed, share "alike" is part of the name), yet in fact, there are no similar licences, you can only relicence under CC BY-SA itself.
Also I think the OGA FAQ needs to be updated, unless a reliable reference can be found supporting it?
"Since this is the sites policy I must assume it was also the artist's intent."
Though if someone releases something under a licence, the terms of that licence applies - if the author thought it meant something else, it's their own fault.
If you have something that said "Licenced under the CC BY-SA. Games using it must be released under the GPL", one could argue it was some kind of adapation of the licence - but this isn't the case here. I don't think one could argue that files released under CC BY-SA on this site, are bound by the definition in the FAQ just because it's on the same site. (Indeed, that would be a whole can of worms in itself, as anyone uploading someone else's CC BY-SA work to OGA would be in violation for relicensing...)
Though as I say, the issue of relicensing CC BY-SA not being allowed on Apple's application site may still apply.
"if a game used all CC-by-SA art, is it really a seperate thing or isn't it an adaptation of the work?"
But if this the case, then it wouldn't be sufficient to release the game binary/code as GPL (since that isn't a "similar" licence), you'd have to release the game as CC BY-SA. Which is why I hope that interpretation isn't true, as it basically makes CC BY-SA useless for game art (well, I suppose one could get round it by dual-licensing the game binary as CC BY-SA).
As for the debate about which licence to use, I think this comes back to the classic GPL vs BSD debate: whether to preserve freedom for users, or whether to maximise freedom for developers. The paradox is you can't do both, which is why we end up with these two philosophies to Free software/content.
@C.Nilsson: "I don't see CC-BY-SA as a mess for game development if the game is open source. If it's not, then I don't want my by-sa art in it"
Unfortunately, the CC BY-SA licence doesn't say that. It's unclear there is a licence that says that - possibly the GPL, but using the GPL for art is a bit vague as to how it applies, again.
ETA: I also like the tactic taken by the FSF (re: the linked news item) - that they didn't ask them to take it down, they asked for the terms to be changed. Of course Apple were unlikely to change just from one request, but it means FSF can't be made to look the bad guys :)
I don't see how this is "evil" though? I mean, the user still gets a pop up asking if they want to download, and they'd be asked again before opening/running it, with the usual warnings that Windows gives. As said above, auto-downloads can be done with a webpage, so most users should be used to the idea (albeit it's a bit unconventional with an svg file).
I don't think clicking on the svg alone could the exe to run?
Yes, it's true that one can circumvent the restriction on uploading exe files, but then one could do that by uploading a zip too, and I guess one has to be pragmatic - there's little point allowing exes on a site for art, but you can't stop people distributing one in another form, without restricting useful types like zip and svg.
Interesting point about svgs - I knew you could embed raster images (rather than the vector style they usually are for), I didn't know about embedding any file though.
Is there the source for this? Remember that the source should be made available for this build (for the GPL, but I also imagine it's of more use for the developers, and also would allow testing on other platforms...)
Freedroid has real-time combat I think. And I think Dawn RPG is real-time. I'm writing a real-time RPG, Erebus ( http://opengameart.org/forumtopic/erebus-a-new-rpg-which-reuses-flare-gr... ), I'm sure there must be others too. An earlier (unreleased) RPG I was writing was turn based, but I think it slowed the pace too much. I think turn-based works better when you have no animation, so characters can still quickly jump from tile to tile (or whatever), making it still fast, but not so much if every character has to move in turn.
I do find it interesting that most open source games seem to be rogue-likes - in particular, it seems strange you have games that can be very complex technically, but then opt for ascii or simple tile based graphics; other genres in open source gaming feature graphics (whether good or bad!)
Diablo was sometimes considered rogue-like because it shared features with those in the rogue-like genre (hack and slash, randomly generated dungeons), though it wasn't turn based. Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike ) describes other features of rogue-likes in general: randomised effect of magic items, single player, permanent death. This comes from http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Berlin_Interp... which features a longer list.
I'd say rogue-likes are more a vague subset of RPGs, and not a 3rd classification to turn based and real time.
"It defines anything that depends on that project is a derivative work."
Which bit of the licence is this?
"On the otherhand, CC-By-Sa deals with art and for games as I remember there is an FSF statement stating code and art are separate."
But the FSF are behind the GPL, not CC-BY-SA (which is by Creative Commons).
The question of whether a copyleft licence on art applies to the game exe/code is I feel uncertain both with the GPL and CC BY-SA. The FSF's position seems to be that you shouldn't use the GPL for art. OTOH, CC BY-SA is intended for art, and I don't think Creative Commons have clarified the effect on games?
If what usr_share says is true - "And a game engine / code is hardly a derivative work of the game assets / data" (and I think it is a good argument), wouldn't this apply to GPL art too?
The GPL defines a "work" as "either the unmodified Program or a work based on the Program" (where "program" is the thing covered by the licence, so in this discussion, it confusingly means the art:)), and distinguishes this from compilations: "A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate."
CC BY-SA meanwhile distinguishes "Adaption" from "Collection", the former defined as "a work based upon the Work, or upon the Work and other pre-existing works, such as a translation, adaptation, derivative work, arrangement of music or other alterations of a literary or artistic work, or phonogram or performance and includes cinematographic adaptations or any other form in which the Work may be recast, transformed, or adapted including in any form recognizably derived from the original".
But yes, licencing as both is better, and I agree CC BY is simpler too :)
There's a similar discussion going on at http://opengameart.org/content/fantasyart-background regarding use of GPL - in short, it's unclear what the GPL means for art/music (what counts as "source"?), or how it applies to the game licence when used in a game (does it have to be GPL too?), and licences like CC BY may be worth adding (remember one can release under multiple licences to reduce risk of licence incompatibility problems).
"As a rule of thumb, I expect colour ramps (as found somewhere in the LPC base assets) to be copyrightable, simply because it is difficult for me as a non-artists to create good ones."
My understanding is that being difficult to create is not sufficient to be copyrightable, but there must be a creative element. I guess one could argue there can be a creative element to a colour palette, though it's not really clear to me...
I agree.
On anonymity - on the one hand, I agree there is the point that it allows people to be more vicious without having to worry. But I think anonymity is a good thing too, and this episode shows that aspect also: I don't want any risk of my employer being associated with any comments I make, or to be fired because people find out where I work. (I'm guessing this firing happened in states with at-will employment, something I disagree with...)
I think it's a good thing to have some rules about sexual talk in that kind of conference. Perhaps there should be some rules about taking photos of people without their consent...
It sounds a good idea.
I guess one catch is that the likes of Disney have no issues with raiding the public domain for content that they then use in derivative works which are locked up for 95 years or more. So a system where some people voluntarily release their content isn't the same as one where it's shorter copyright terms for everyone, and I can see the standard copyleft argument - making something under a GPL-style licence expire after a shorter term just makes it easier for someone else to build a derivative work that's then copyrighted for 95 years, or perhaps indefinitely.
Though I can see it being a good thing in terms of raising awareness, making the point that there are people who believe in shorter terms. Often the debate is polarised as if the only two options are "the current system" and "no copyright everything must be free".
It would also be useful for people releasing content where they don't want to use Free/Open licences (either people doing things commercially - or perhaps people who don't want their work used commercially in the short term).
And it's perhaps a compromise between the two opposed views of GPL vs BSD style licences: I can see that I might say "I'd rather choose GPL, but in 20 years I don't really care what someone does with it, so the copyright might as well expire by then".
It's not true that CC BY-SA requires source to be released (see below). However, it is the case that the CC BY-SA art itself must be relicensed under the same terms, so the issue of "All apple games on the app store must be released under the Apple liscense" may still be true.
Also see some discussion at https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/9846/iosmac-app-store-and-cc-by... .
I agree with C.Nilsson's reply. Yes, licence incompatibility can be a shame, but I'd argue that things like the locking down of computing devices is certainly in the spirit of what Free copyleft licences were intended to deter (or at least, not support). Still, you are of course free to ask the copyright holders what they think, they may be okay with more liberal licences.
@Gaurav: "The (relatively) easy solution is to release your game both under the GPL (perhaps the source on github) and the Apple license (on the iOS store). So long as the game is also available as GPL, no one can complain."
It may be true that no one complains, but I'm not sure that fixes the issue. The problem isn't availability of source code, it's relicensing under a different term, which would apply even if the files are available elsewhere. (I mean, I can't relicense CC BY-SA art under a proprietary licence - I don't think it's allowed just because I could say "But you can still download the files from Open Game Art"?)
@cjc83486: "This license requires you to release the source your entire project under the same license or one with similar terms, such as the GNU GPL. If you're trying to sell a game, this is probably something you want to avoid, as you will be required to distribute the source code, and your users will be allowed to distribute it as well."
This FAQ is incorrect imo. There is nothing in the CC BY-SA licence text ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode ) that says "or similar" includes the GPL. In fact, the text refers to "Creative Commons Compatible License", defined at http://creativecommons.org/compatiblelicenses , which currently says "Please note that to date, Creative Commons has not approved any licenses for compatibility"!
I think it is a problem of CC BY-SA that the human-readable summary refers to "similar" licences (and indeed, share "alike" is part of the name), yet in fact, there are no similar licences, you can only relicence under CC BY-SA itself.
Also I think the OGA FAQ needs to be updated, unless a reliable reference can be found supporting it?
"Since this is the sites policy I must assume it was also the artist's intent."
Though if someone releases something under a licence, the terms of that licence applies - if the author thought it meant something else, it's their own fault.
If you have something that said "Licenced under the CC BY-SA. Games using it must be released under the GPL", one could argue it was some kind of adapation of the licence - but this isn't the case here. I don't think one could argue that files released under CC BY-SA on this site, are bound by the definition in the FAQ just because it's on the same site. (Indeed, that would be a whole can of worms in itself, as anyone uploading someone else's CC BY-SA work to OGA would be in violation for relicensing...)
Though as I say, the issue of relicensing CC BY-SA not being allowed on Apple's application site may still apply.
"if a game used all CC-by-SA art, is it really a seperate thing or isn't it an adaptation of the work?"
But if this the case, then it wouldn't be sufficient to release the game binary/code as GPL (since that isn't a "similar" licence), you'd have to release the game as CC BY-SA. Which is why I hope that interpretation isn't true, as it basically makes CC BY-SA useless for game art (well, I suppose one could get round it by dual-licensing the game binary as CC BY-SA).
As for the debate about which licence to use, I think this comes back to the classic GPL vs BSD debate: whether to preserve freedom for users, or whether to maximise freedom for developers. The paradox is you can't do both, which is why we end up with these two philosophies to Free software/content.
@C.Nilsson: "I don't see CC-BY-SA as a mess for game development if the game is open source. If it's not, then I don't want my by-sa art in it"
Unfortunately, the CC BY-SA licence doesn't say that. It's unclear there is a licence that says that - possibly the GPL, but using the GPL for art is a bit vague as to how it applies, again.
ETA: I also like the tactic taken by the FSF (re: the linked news item) - that they didn't ask them to take it down, they asked for the terms to be changed. Of course Apple were unlikely to change just from one request, but it means FSF can't be made to look the bad guys :)
I don't see how this is "evil" though? I mean, the user still gets a pop up asking if they want to download, and they'd be asked again before opening/running it, with the usual warnings that Windows gives. As said above, auto-downloads can be done with a webpage, so most users should be used to the idea (albeit it's a bit unconventional with an svg file).
I don't think clicking on the svg alone could the exe to run?
Yes, it's true that one can circumvent the restriction on uploading exe files, but then one could do that by uploading a zip too, and I guess one has to be pragmatic - there's little point allowing exes on a site for art, but you can't stop people distributing one in another form, without restricting useful types like zip and svg.
Interesting point about svgs - I knew you could embed raster images (rather than the vector style they usually are for), I didn't know about embedding any file though.
Is there the source for this? Remember that the source should be made available for this build (for the GPL, but I also imagine it's of more use for the developers, and also would allow testing on other platforms...)
"I think the YouTube video part can cause copyright/trademark problems."
Which bit is that? I don't see any problems...
Freedroid has real-time combat I think. And I think Dawn RPG is real-time. I'm writing a real-time RPG, Erebus ( http://opengameart.org/forumtopic/erebus-a-new-rpg-which-reuses-flare-gr... ), I'm sure there must be others too. An earlier (unreleased) RPG I was writing was turn based, but I think it slowed the pace too much. I think turn-based works better when you have no animation, so characters can still quickly jump from tile to tile (or whatever), making it still fast, but not so much if every character has to move in turn.
Also see http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4070 for a similar topic about Free RPGs.
I do find it interesting that most open source games seem to be rogue-likes - in particular, it seems strange you have games that can be very complex technically, but then opt for ascii or simple tile based graphics; other genres in open source gaming feature graphics (whether good or bad!)
Diablo was sometimes considered rogue-like because it shared features with those in the rogue-like genre (hack and slash, randomly generated dungeons), though it wasn't turn based. Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike ) describes other features of rogue-likes in general: randomised effect of magic items, single player, permanent death. This comes from http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Berlin_Interp... which features a longer list.
I'd say rogue-likes are more a vague subset of RPGs, and not a 3rd classification to turn based and real time.
"It defines anything that depends on that project is a derivative work."
Which bit of the licence is this?
"On the otherhand, CC-By-Sa deals with art and for games as I remember there is an FSF statement stating code and art are separate."
But the FSF are behind the GPL, not CC-BY-SA (which is by Creative Commons).
The question of whether a copyleft licence on art applies to the game exe/code is I feel uncertain both with the GPL and CC BY-SA. The FSF's position seems to be that you shouldn't use the GPL for art. OTOH, CC BY-SA is intended for art, and I don't think Creative Commons have clarified the effect on games?
If what usr_share says is true - "And a game engine / code is hardly a derivative work of the game assets / data" (and I think it is a good argument), wouldn't this apply to GPL art too?
The GPL defines a "work" as "either the unmodified Program or a work based on the Program" (where "program" is the thing covered by the licence, so in this discussion, it confusingly means the art:)), and distinguishes this from compilations: "A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate."
CC BY-SA meanwhile distinguishes "Adaption" from "Collection", the former defined as "a work based upon the Work, or upon the Work and other pre-existing works, such as a translation, adaptation, derivative work, arrangement of music or other alterations of a literary or artistic work, or phonogram or performance and includes cinematographic adaptations or any other form in which the Work may be recast, transformed, or adapted including in any form recognizably derived from the original".
But yes, licencing as both is better, and I agree CC BY is simpler too :)
There's a similar discussion going on at http://opengameart.org/content/fantasyart-background regarding use of GPL - in short, it's unclear what the GPL means for art/music (what counts as "source"?), or how it applies to the game licence when used in a game (does it have to be GPL too?), and licences like CC BY may be worth adding (remember one can release under multiple licences to reduce risk of licence incompatibility problems).
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