First, I'd like to state that I used to be an avid fan of the GPL. At this point, I hate it. It's far too restrictive and has caused a lot of controversies. Plus, either people will ignore the GPL license and do what they want with the work anyway or they simply won't use anything licensed under the GPL for commercial works. The LGPL is a lot better in the sense that it only covers the specific portion of the software distributed and doesn't force an entire project to be licensed under the GPL -- e.g., makes it a lot easier to use with commercial projects.
That stated -- I'm not sure the GPL applies to artwork at all as it very specifically talks about software, freedom with said software, source code of said software, and the restrictions the license puts on source code and the software that is licensed. Even if it did cover art, I would still either use a CC-BY or CC-BY-SA license for any and all art assets.
Personally I don't really think it matters which of the two licenses you use for art assets... but using the CC-BY-SA assumes that all users are only thinking of using it for non-commercial, open-sourced games. Not everybody does and that could be an issue for the users who really want to use the work but don't want to have to 'share alike' if they make changes to the work. After all, having those changes would give them something unique.
CC-BY, on the other hand, pretty much requires that the original artist is given credit and that the user is free to do what they want with the work, including modifications, without having to share changes they've made to the work. I can see why this one could have less appeal but I suppose it all depends on how you want your work used and how how want changes made to the work to be handled.
I would like to humbly request that the licensing terms be changed to something less restrictive? Using this art in a project could force the entire project to be licensed under the GPL and would turn potential users away from it (like myself).
I would suggest changing your license from GPL to a CC type license (attribution share alike, perhaps?) GPL is pretty restrictive and using it in a program could potentially force the program's author to license their software under GPL whether they want to or not.
Does it matter if it did or did not take more than a few minutes? Personally, I don't think so... if the result is a high quality art asset I see no reason why that should hold any bearing.
On the note of quality, I would highly recommend a higher resolution version of this, say 1024x768. 640x400 is very low resolution and things like this don't scale up very well. Just a thought... ;)
No. It's from an old version of the program that was open-sourced under the GPL license. The licensing terms applied to the source code and program only, not the generated output.
The fact that the authors have since closed their source and made the program commercial with different licensing terms is a moot point. I did not use their new program, I used an old, modified version under different licensing terms.
Anyway, as far as a parallax effect, you described it reverse. The farthest layer moves the slowest, the nearest moves the fastest. At least that's the definition of a parallax... ;)
I suppose using the sphere in a sphere method would work (and did in the past), but really you'd want to use a shader script in an actual game to get the atmospheric effect. Heck of a lot faster and easier in the GPU's memory.
First, I'd like to state that I used to be an avid fan of the GPL. At this point, I hate it. It's far too restrictive and has caused a lot of controversies. Plus, either people will ignore the GPL license and do what they want with the work anyway or they simply won't use anything licensed under the GPL for commercial works. The LGPL is a lot better in the sense that it only covers the specific portion of the software distributed and doesn't force an entire project to be licensed under the GPL -- e.g., makes it a lot easier to use with commercial projects.
That stated -- I'm not sure the GPL applies to artwork at all as it very specifically talks about software, freedom with said software, source code of said software, and the restrictions the license puts on source code and the software that is licensed. Even if it did cover art, I would still either use a CC-BY or CC-BY-SA license for any and all art assets.
Personally I don't really think it matters which of the two licenses you use for art assets... but using the CC-BY-SA assumes that all users are only thinking of using it for non-commercial, open-sourced games. Not everybody does and that could be an issue for the users who really want to use the work but don't want to have to 'share alike' if they make changes to the work. After all, having those changes would give them something unique.
CC-BY, on the other hand, pretty much requires that the original artist is given credit and that the user is free to do what they want with the work, including modifications, without having to share changes they've made to the work. I can see why this one could have less appeal but I suppose it all depends on how you want your work used and how how want changes made to the work to be handled.
I would like to humbly request that the licensing terms be changed to something less restrictive? Using this art in a project could force the entire project to be licensed under the GPL and would turn potential users away from it (like myself).
I would suggest changing your license from GPL to a CC type license (attribution share alike, perhaps?) GPL is pretty restrictive and using it in a program could potentially force the program's author to license their software under GPL whether they want to or not.
Wow... I'm a big fan of this!
Who the hell cares? I don't understand why you thought it was necessary to point that out.
Edit:
Yeah, I know I'm late to the game, but I thought I'd chime in anyway.
Does it matter if it did or did not take more than a few minutes? Personally, I don't think so... if the result is a high quality art asset I see no reason why that should hold any bearing.
On the note of quality, I would highly recommend a higher resolution version of this, say 1024x768. 640x400 is very low resolution and things like this don't scale up very well. Just a thought... ;)
No. It's from an old version of the program that was open-sourced under the GPL license. The licensing terms applied to the source code and program only, not the generated output.
The fact that the authors have since closed their source and made the program commercial with different licensing terms is a moot point. I did not use their new program, I used an old, modified version under different licensing terms.
's' word? Are we five? Please...
Anyway, as far as a parallax effect, you described it reverse. The farthest layer moves the slowest, the nearest moves the fastest. At least that's the definition of a parallax... ;)
I suppose using the sphere in a sphere method would work (and did in the past), but really you'd want to use a shader script in an actual game to get the atmospheric effect. Heck of a lot faster and easier in the GPU's memory.
They aren't compatible, and IMHO the GPL should be permanently and forever abolished. Please please please relicense with a CC license! :*(
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