this thread is like the poster child for "why people are scared to fiddle with libre software"
Agreed. The majority of confusion and frustration comes from people wanting to be free to share their work when it's mixed with libre content, but being unable to include other components that are non-libre. GPL and CC-BY-SA are the largest source of this frustration for most people. Well, there's the -NC and -ND licenses, but I - nor FSF - do not consider those to be libre licenses.
However, it is worth noting that FSF has clarified in several instances that "non-functional data" (content that is not code) does not trigger the linking requirement:
GPL FAQ: "If the art/music is under the GPL, then the GPL applies when you copy it no matter how you copy it.... Keep in mind that some programs, particularly video games, can have artwork/audio that is licensed separately from the underlying GPLed game."
...and also...
Wesnoth moderator: "Is it legally permissable to distribute GPL software with non-GPL-compatible game data (graphics, music files etc.)"?
Brett Smith, Free Software Foundation Licensing Team: "If the "content" does not contain any code -- so that it only has maps, sound, graphics, and so on -- then you can release such content for a GPLed game engine under a proprietary license. If the content includes code -- like enemy AI, event scripting, and the like -- then the answer depends on how the engine and the code interact."
(Emphasis mine)
This, and my assumptions about WithinAmnesia's project, is what my original statements were based on. Saying "You simply CANNOT create a collective work including a GPL'd part, the license DOES NOT PERMIT that (read section 5c)." is true... for code. which is why Section 5 is titled "Conveying modified source versions". Creating an aggregate or collective work that includes GPL'd code but non-GPL'd non-code may be permitted. I'm not going to say it IS permitted always, because it depends on a lot of factors, but I tend to trust FSF's interpretation of their own license. Of course if you're licensing art and data as GPL, then of course it all needs to be GPL. However, as you can glean from everything above, GPL is a code license, and makes for a crappy art license. You can use it for art, but it makes things very confusing.
@WithinAmnesia: Whether or not the engine is being used under the terms of GPL or under a properitary private agreement between Clint and yourself doesn't prevent you from letting your players know the engine your game runs on is available under the terms of GPL. Only you get to use the engine under any special terms Clint gave you, but everyone else is still allowed to use the engine under GPL if they want, and you're allowed to say so. No one but Clint is allowed to complain about how you're packaging or using the engine.
Any code changes and code additions you make should also be made GPL and shared with everyone, but the narrative, "quest data", configurations, and art you create are your own and- IMHO- can be packaged in the same download, if not the same folder/zip-file. (As non-functional data, they are not triggering the linking requirement nor qualify as "source code" referenced in GPL section 5, based on FSF's interpretation referenced above. Though this does depend on how you're licensing your own non-code content. GPL as well?) It is always good advice to double-check with the author if you're not clear on what they're ok with, but it seems to me you already had a good understanding of what Clint Bellanger was ok with. You can bug him again if you need, but it doesn't seem like you need to.
There is no risk of Clint (or anyone else who shares content under GPL or CC licenses) revoking his license and saying people can no longer use it freely; these licenses are irrevokable... Also, Clint is the kind of guy that would never do that anyway, even if he could.
@MedicineStrom: I'm afraid GPL does not allow that. He might be able to pack the assets (free, but non-GPL, that's important) and his narrative (proprietary) together, but the GPL license explicitly forbids packing the GPL'd engine with other non-GPL parts
@bzt: You're correct. I was thinking of aggregates under LGPL and collections under CC-BY-SA. I cannot speak to GPL's virality (and should not have). My underlying intent was to point out that WithinAmnesia has spoken with the GPL copyright holder and has been granted his blessing. We are not privy to the full circumstances specific to an arrangement between Clint Bellanger and WithinAmnesia. Any such arrangement would be wholly separate from how GPL affects anyone else with this project, so I won't get into that, and I apologize for adding confusion to this.
How this applies to WithinAmnesia's specific circumstances aside, for anyone else looking for understanding for their own projects, I do agree with bzt's advice to distribute GPL'd engine code separate from content/configuration if they're not also GPL'd. Actually, I recommend avoiding GPL entirely. Of all the free licenses, it is the least free IMO. Those same features probably make it one of the stronger licenses, too, I guess. It's more of an anti-closed-source license than it is a pro-open-source license.
He can indeed distribute the parts together, so long as those parts under GPL are also available for free, without the rest of WithinAmnesia's components. It's effectively identical to what you propose in your last paragraph, but without as much inconvenience.
End users can download the Engine + Assets + config/narrative (aggregate package) from place A (with payment), and/or download the assets from place B (for free), and/or the engine from place C (for free).
Place A, B, and C can also basically be the same place\website, just with the A link requiring payment, while B and C are free downloads. In fact, the way WithinAmnesia's package is set up, users can access all the content of B and C within the game folder structure and are free to use it for free after only downloading A. The point is, the GPL components are all available even without paying anything (via download of B and C), yet they aren't required to download 1 game from 3 places if they don't want to.
GPL section 5c prevents non-GPL components from being combined with GPL components, but like I said above they must all be separate legal collections. I also said some code couldn't be in a separate collection based on how it's linked. That still doesn't necessitate ALL components from being under GPL even if some parts are.
"...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."
Yes, it seems like vasder has not fully understood the question being asked.
bzt's answer, although not wrong, is still incomplete. You CAN do what op is asking with GPL and CC-BY-SA. But only by keeping the components separate. OP may not be able to copyright the "full" game; the engine AND the assets AND the narrative components AND the gameplay mechanics, but the components that WithinAmnesia is the sole legal owner and creator of can be copyrighted and he can prevent others from selling the game so long as "the game" contains those components.
This is the same way many AAA games operate as well. Any major game that uses the Unity or Unreal engine as their backbone can still copyright their game (sans the engine) and prevent others from selling it or redistributing it without permission. The game studio doesn't have license over the game's framework, but they still have license to distribute the other components they made that run on the engine.
The assets can be under CC-BY-SA, the engine can be under GPL, and the narrative can be under a proprietary copyright. The licensing has to be kept clean with each of these parts under their own "collection", but it is well within the legal framework of each of the licenses. GPL is the most troublesome for this because, depending on how code is linked to other GPL code, it may not be able to be kept in a separate "legal collection". Never the less, the other components are still owned by WithinAmnesia.
Ultimately, OP has already received a response from the author of both the game engine and the majority of assets, who has confirmed to OP this is allowed by the license and has even given his blessing to do it the way OP outlined above.
Are all the openly licensed art assets of the project already on OGA? If not, we'd love to have those. As for code, are you able to post it on GitHub and share a link with us? Even if someone doesn't come along and decide to keep going with it, they may find something useful to use in their own projects. :)
As for design documents; what does that involve? There is no issue with sharing documents on this thread unless they're so numerous and huge that it keeps the page from loading. I would like to see what you've got. Also, depending on their content, they could be considered art assets in their own regard. :D
I like the idea of having in-game flora be recognizable as IRL plants. I would be especially interested in IRL plants that have medicinal or mystical properties, not just as food. If such plants also have culinary uses, all the better! Garlic, for example, has all three:
medicinal - immune boosting.
mythological - repels evil such as vampires.
culinary - aromatic savory seasoning.
Elder Scrolls games seem to do this sometimes. I always loved being able to recognize the in-game alchemical reagents based on my out-of-game knowledge of plants like aloe vera, ginko, flax, or bergamot.
Ooops! I intended to have the animals in my list as well. Most interested in game animals; deer, bears, boars are in the difficult category. but foxes(?), rabbits, ducks, birds in general, fish, and squirrels. Rats too, because everyone gets their first level-up from fighting rats! :D
Agreed. The majority of confusion and frustration comes from people wanting to be free to share their work when it's mixed with libre content, but being unable to include other components that are non-libre. GPL and CC-BY-SA are the largest source of this frustration for most people. Well, there's the -NC and -ND licenses, but I - nor FSF - do not consider those to be libre licenses.
However, it is worth noting that FSF has clarified in several instances that "non-functional data" (content that is not code) does not trigger the linking requirement:
...and also...
(Emphasis mine)
This, and my assumptions about WithinAmnesia's project, is what my original statements were based on. Saying "You simply CANNOT create a collective work including a GPL'd part, the license DOES NOT PERMIT that (read section 5c)." is true... for code. which is why Section 5 is titled "Conveying modified source versions". Creating an aggregate or collective work that includes GPL'd code but non-GPL'd non-code may be permitted. I'm not going to say it IS permitted always, because it depends on a lot of factors, but I tend to trust FSF's interpretation of their own license. Of course if you're licensing art and data as GPL, then of course it all needs to be GPL. However, as you can glean from everything above, GPL is a code license, and makes for a crappy art license. You can use it for art, but it makes things very confusing.
@WithinAmnesia: Whether or not the engine is being used under the terms of GPL or under a properitary private agreement between Clint and yourself doesn't prevent you from letting your players know the engine your game runs on is available under the terms of GPL. Only you get to use the engine under any special terms Clint gave you, but everyone else is still allowed to use the engine under GPL if they want, and you're allowed to say so. No one but Clint is allowed to complain about how you're packaging or using the engine.
Any code changes and code additions you make should also be made GPL and shared with everyone, but the narrative, "quest data", configurations, and art you create are your own and- IMHO- can be packaged in the same download, if not the same folder/zip-file. (As non-functional data, they are not triggering the linking requirement nor qualify as "source code" referenced in GPL section 5, based on FSF's interpretation referenced above. Though this does depend on how you're licensing your own non-code content. GPL as well?) It is always good advice to double-check with the author if you're not clear on what they're ok with, but it seems to me you already had a good understanding of what Clint Bellanger was ok with. You can bug him again if you need, but it doesn't seem like you need to.
There is no risk of Clint (or anyone else who shares content under GPL or CC licenses) revoking his license and saying people can no longer use it freely; these licenses are irrevokable... Also, Clint is the kind of guy that would never do that anyway, even if he could.
@bzt: You're correct. I was thinking of aggregates under LGPL and collections under CC-BY-SA. I cannot speak to GPL's virality (and should not have). My underlying intent was to point out that WithinAmnesia has spoken with the GPL copyright holder and has been granted his blessing. We are not privy to the full circumstances specific to an arrangement between Clint Bellanger and WithinAmnesia. Any such arrangement would be wholly separate from how GPL affects anyone else with this project, so I won't get into that, and I apologize for adding confusion to this.
How this applies to WithinAmnesia's specific circumstances aside, for anyone else looking for understanding for their own projects, I do agree with bzt's advice to distribute GPL'd engine code separate from content/configuration if they're not also GPL'd. Actually, I recommend avoiding GPL entirely. Of all the free licenses, it is the least free IMO. Those same features probably make it one of the stronger licenses, too, I guess. It's more of an anti-closed-source license than it is a pro-open-source license.
He can indeed distribute the parts together, so long as those parts under GPL are also available for free, without the rest of WithinAmnesia's components. It's effectively identical to what you propose in your last paragraph, but without as much inconvenience.
End users can download the Engine + Assets + config/narrative (aggregate package) from place A (with payment), and/or download the assets from place B (for free), and/or the engine from place C (for free).
Place A, B, and C can also basically be the same place\website, just with the A link requiring payment, while B and C are free downloads. In fact, the way WithinAmnesia's package is set up, users can access all the content of B and C within the game folder structure and are free to use it for free after only downloading A. The point is, the GPL components are all available even without paying anything (via download of B and C), yet they aren't required to download 1 game from 3 places if they don't want to.
GPL section 5c prevents non-GPL components from being combined with GPL components, but like I said above they must all be separate legal collections. I also said some code couldn't be in a separate collection based on how it's linked. That still doesn't necessitate ALL components from being under GPL even if some parts are.
Yes, it seems like vasder has not fully understood the question being asked.
bzt's answer, although not wrong, is still incomplete. You CAN do what op is asking with GPL and CC-BY-SA. But only by keeping the components separate. OP may not be able to copyright the "full" game; the engine AND the assets AND the narrative components AND the gameplay mechanics, but the components that WithinAmnesia is the sole legal owner and creator of can be copyrighted and he can prevent others from selling the game so long as "the game" contains those components.
This is the same way many AAA games operate as well. Any major game that uses the Unity or Unreal engine as their backbone can still copyright their game (sans the engine) and prevent others from selling it or redistributing it without permission. The game studio doesn't have license over the game's framework, but they still have license to distribute the other components they made that run on the engine.
The assets can be under CC-BY-SA, the engine can be under GPL, and the narrative can be under a proprietary copyright. The licensing has to be kept clean with each of these parts under their own "collection", but it is well within the legal framework of each of the licenses. GPL is the most troublesome for this because, depending on how code is linked to other GPL code, it may not be able to be kept in a separate "legal collection". Never the less, the other components are still owned by WithinAmnesia.
Ultimately, OP has already received a response from the author of both the game engine and the majority of assets, who has confirmed to OP this is allowed by the license and has even given his blessing to do it the way OP outlined above.
Haha! Ok, yes I did laugh. I had removed the user before seeing the context of the comment. Thank you, Emcee for filling me in.
Oh, I'm sorry; you had shared the mod links before. I missed the dropbox link in your heresy thread. Yay! thanks.
Danimal, Y U no have link to mod folder!? This sounds like great content. Is it private?
Are all the openly licensed art assets of the project already on OGA? If not, we'd love to have those. As for code, are you able to post it on GitHub and share a link with us? Even if someone doesn't come along and decide to keep going with it, they may find something useful to use in their own projects. :)
As for design documents; what does that involve? There is no issue with sharing documents on this thread unless they're so numerous and huge that it keeps the page from loading. I would like to see what you've got. Also, depending on their content, they could be considered art assets in their own regard. :D
I like the idea of having in-game flora be recognizable as IRL plants. I would be especially interested in IRL plants that have medicinal or mystical properties, not just as food. If such plants also have culinary uses, all the better! Garlic, for example, has all three:
Elder Scrolls games seem to do this sometimes. I always loved being able to recognize the in-game alchemical reagents based on my out-of-game knowledge of plants like aloe vera, ginko, flax, or bergamot.
Ooops! I intended to have the animals in my list as well. Most interested in game animals; deer, bears, boars are in the difficult category. but foxes(?), rabbits, ducks, birds in general, fish, and squirrels. Rats too, because everyone gets their first level-up from fighting rats! :D
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