Oolite Bulletins

I'm going to leap in here and set out the legal terms of this as I see them (IANAL - but my wife, is and she advises me on where to look most of this stuff up).

• Oolite's licensing terms DO NOT extend to its expansion packs. (This has been tested in law before now.) They were never intended to either.
• OXPs are the work of groups or individuals. They are free to license them for others to use under any terms. (Yes, that does mean that packaged OXPs could be sold commercially, but really, who's gonna?)
• Groups or individuals who want to reuse the content of any OXP, or any other protected intellectual property, should respect the terms of any license under which that content was released. If this prevents them from modifying, or reusing any of the content, then they absolutely should not do so - although they are free to ask the authors to relicense the content under more free conditions if they wish.
• Where reused or modified, it should be indicated what license the content was issued under so that others can do the same.
• If an OXP has been issued with no indication of a license or intentions of the author then the strictest degree of licensing should be assumed, ie. no copying, no reuse, ask the authors before doing anything with it.

I think that about covers it. Yes, this is meant to be the definitive word on the subject.

Press space, commanders!

Cheers,

Drew.

aegidian wrote:

I'm going to leap in here and set out the legal terms of this as I see them (IANAL - but my wife, is and she advises me on where to look most of this stuff up).

• Oolite's licensing terms DO NOT extend to its expansion packs. (This has been tested in law before now.) They were never intended to either.
• OXPs are the work of groups or individuals. They are free to license them for others to use under any terms. (Yes, that does mean that packaged OXPs could be sold commercially, but really, who's gonna?)
• Groups or individuals who want to reuse the content of any OXP, or any other protected intellectual property, should respect the terms of any license under which that content was released. If this prevents them from modifying, or reusing any of the content, then they absolutely should not do so - although they are free to ask the authors to relicense the content under more free conditions if they wish.
• Where reused or modified, it should be indicated what license the content was issued under so that others can do the same.
• If an OXP has been issued with no indication of a license or intentions of the author then the strictest degree of licensing should be assumed, ie. no copying, no reuse, ask the authors before doing anything with it.

I think that about covers it. Yes, this is meant to be the definitive word on the subject.

AMEN
Whe should make this a sticky

Having seen the response to the post and the final conclusion. I understand the conclusion.

It is amoral to not properly license These unlicensed oxp's need to properly highlighted with a toxic label on the wiki. As simply using these oxp's might cause offence.

Aegidian, your answer concerning the rules of oxp'ing and the licensing issues involved is clear, understandable and covers everything legal.

I wished I had had it that clear before. It is sad that I get this information after having invested a lot of work under the (wrong) assumption that everything related to Oolite would be covered under the CC-3 license.

I think that your statement above should be put up as a sticky in the Expansions forum and also everywhere else where someone who might want to merge or alter oxps (in principle, every potential modder for Oolite) could have a look (wiki, etc.) - so that a waste of work like mine can't easily repeat itself.

If there is any meaningful way (for me personally) to continue to contribute is something I will have to think about. I will drop by the forums for sure and perhaps offer the special stuff from OE as separate oxps, but after all that has happened and the frustration of finding this out so late puts the latter in doubt.

I am still unhappy about the way open source has been treated here - but aegidian's analysis has made it obvious to me that this is my own private problem. The information provided here should really, really be made known in public, too, to avoid repetition!

L

We already have a sticky with substantially the same information.

Lestradae wrote:

I wished I had had it that clear before. It is sad that I get this information after having invested a lot of work under the (wrong) assumption that everything related to Oolite would be covered under the CC-3 license.

L - I'm sorry you feel you've wasted your time, although I do feel some creative good has come out of this. Although I visit this forum fairly often, I try to remain 'stepped-back-from-Oolite'. I've done my part, and I'm proud of the work I put in, but I'm much more proud of how far this project has come in the years since I left it.

It's also taken me many years to come by the knowledge I now have about Open Source projects and the ins and outs of licensing intellectual property for distribution. It's still not a perfect understanding, and I have Ahruman and others to thank for pointing me in the right directions while shielding me from the more evangelical of OS campaigning.

FWIW, I wouldn't go as far as saying releasing unlicensed content is immoral. But it can certainly be like a ramble in a minefield to deal with, as you seem to have discovered.


Keep Right On Commander,

-- Giles.

drew wrote:

Press space, commanders!

Excellent.

Thank You very much Aegidian for clearing this mess.

Now everyone can continue to spread love, happiness and knowledge.

Fair enough, evolution time.

This doesn't invalidate the possibility of streamlining the method by which users can access oxp's. It could be easier to understand, easier to update and inconjunction with library more difficult to "loose" oxps. Unless of course the maker wants them DESTROYED.

We recently had a extrenely talented gentleman by the name of seven pop up with a very nice interface that could be used as a front end for such a system (at least visually).

By properly databasing oxps that then periodically interragates the personally held locations of the originals (after the maker has said this is OK) for updates. Several interesting opportunities open up:

1) Personal oober oxp lists. Players can share settings, rate oxp's on how much easier or more difficult they make the game. This way new players benefit from older players experience of what works and what doesn't.

2) More comprehensive bug fixes, notes can be made if specific oxp's don't play nice with oolite versions, os's video ram etc. So quite quickly you'll build up naturally a swiss army knife of happy stable oxps that instantly enhance a players game.

3) Old version retention (just in case the new fix isn't a fix). and to prevent intended damage.

4) If an oxp "goes down" from a personal site the existing version in the library is frozen. Safe guarding it for the players.

Cutting to the chase here this is a wish list, but it illistrates one important point, we are mostly makers NOT presenters. The front end presentation of this game on the net pootles along fine in a kind of old duffers in their back shed messing with electronics kind of way. But If you want broader appeal it's got to be made as easy as walking into a whore house.

You see I don't know if people want to keep this game a bit "messonic" you know signs and wonders, enigma wrapped in a mystery. Or if they want to blow the doors open. If you want to blow the doors open then the eye candy on the cover has to equal the eye candy in game.

Google oolite, first page:

http://www.oolite.org/

Do you catch my drift?

ClymAngus wrote:

it illistrates one important point, we are mostly makers NOT presenters.

I am not sure if 'presenters' is the exact word you are looking for. To make an OXP library work, we need an organiser. Who also has a wide knowledge of the OXPs out there, and a big helping of dedication to see such a big project through to completion.

Anybody we know fit the bill?

Edit: re the other aspect of your post, I think the eye-candy is most important in the game, not in the associated website. Just my Cr0.02.

Buggeration - just seen the change of title again.

OK, this is probably too late but can I ask the following questions/make the following suggestions...

Given Aegidian's clarification of the licensing, which, as Ahruman, points out, has actually been available and stickied for some time basically means that OXPs with no specific license included in the OXP or stated in its release conditions must be assumed to have very strict non-reuse licensing terms - this is sad - but is a fact and therefore we must live with it - it is easy for those who are still active on the board and oxping to rectify - simply state/re-release oxp with you intended licensing terms.

This will put some oxpers in a strange position but it must be done so we can all move on from this point that oxpers can't have it both ways - you can't say - "do with it what you will" AND "please don't put it in O(S)E" - unless you specifically state so in a license. Before O(S)E brought it to the fore - we have all been rather huggy and "nice" - although the Sung Texture issue should have been a portent of the potential of what was to come - but clearly we have moved on since then - oxps seem to be much bigger and more complicated than I remember being in the past and the potential for disaster and incompatibility is now legion without careful management - a potential reasoning for licensing if nothing else (allowing management/distribution of oxps at the author's intended rate and reasoning).

While it seems possible for current and active oxpers to license (openly or restrictively) their work - what do we do about orphaned oxps - legally, it would seem that you cannot simply say, we didn't hear from the original author for a bit so we have picked up their work and debugged and re-released, this would seem to fly in the face of what Aegidian claimed - which is without a license - the strictest terms must apply - so potentially - unless these orphaned oxps are redone from a conceptual point of view upwards they are actually effectively lost to us (from a future modification pov) unless I am misunderstanding the fall-out from non-licensing states of some older oxps.

OK, that's the waffle over - I think my idea overall is a relatively straightforward one, although, as a non-coder I can make such claims, because I may not understand the deeper, more complex issues, but let me say what I think and you can shoot me down afterwards.

My basic assumptions:

Some OXPs have a license that means they could be included in OE because they state so

Some OXPs have a license that means they could not be included in OE because the license is more restrictive (ND)

Some OXPs have no license and therefore should not be included (ever?) in OE (until some time in the future such a license is forthcoming)

OE did some stuff on its own that does not require other OXPs - such as the ship price calculator (controversial though this is/was), buying stations, Oobay Trading (and possibly much more that I am unaware of)

OXPs live in the AddOns directory, OXPs are loaded in alphabetical order with the last OXP loaded by this method overriding any content of other loaded OXPs where data uses the same "name".

If some/all/most of the above is true then does thiis/could this work:

A graphical front end for OE - it has included by default all of the core OE stuff that does not require other OXPs - (let's presume it's done by tick box selection) - if nothing else is ticked then this OE front-end moves the OE core pack into the AddOns dir and then runs Oolite.

The OE GUI front-end has access to another dir which contains all of the OXPs that L has permission to include in OE - when OE GUI is run the OE GUI visits this dir and populates a list - the user then ticks oxps they wish to include in their OE flavour Oolite. OE GUI then does the following:

Checks the Oolite AddOns dir to see if another variant of the ticked OXP exists, if it does, then OE GUI points this out (colour codes, textual display, etc) and where possible tries to check which is the newer version of the OXP (the one already in the AddOn dir or the one in the OE oxp dir) - and where it cannot be determined offers a "proceed at your own risk" statement.

In addition to this - OE GUI will, when some OXPs are ticked, others in the list will be highlighted as being incompatible and/or down-right-does-not-play-nicely-with the OXP of choice - so it is up to the user to decide which OXP they want - and OE GUI will also have to check the AddOns dir for the presence of any variant of the incompatible oxp(s) and flag this up too - this is where L could do some excellent value-added work.

Finally, ticking some OXPs will then automatically tick other oxps as mandated requirements for that OXP to work as intended.

Then - with the tick list done - OE GUI copies the required files to the AddOns dir and fires up Oolite.

Of course, you may wish to play the same game over and over again so there should be a quick launch option in the GUI which does nothing but fire Oolite with the AddOns dir contents as is.

OE could be updated several ways this way - change in GUI, change in core OE structure - addition/upgrading of OXPs in the OE_AddOns dir, making for smaller downloads once the main OE pack was downloaded.

Well, that's it - thoughts - have I just been a naive dumbass?

EDIT: It would seem in the time it's took me to write this over long message (I'm trying to look after a sickly 2yr old as well as get some marking done) - CA has made a similar suggestion... EDIT2: or on re-reading possibly not...

I'm sorry L feel's he's wasted his time, because I don't think that is strictly true. There some tangible end products here.

1 - The OSE content that Lestrade has created himself. The script for rationalising ship prices, the space station ownership and the other features of OSE he created that I've forgotten largely because I never got round to tinkering with them. Thats a substantial oxp in itself.

2 - The herculean effort of bringing almost all the oolite oxp ships into one place. For a new user, many of the original downloads for these oxps are not easily available, so the OSE is a treasure trove of information in this regard. Like an Oolite ship museum.

3 - If you strip away the unnecessary flaming, there is a constructive and informative discussion under all this about meta OXPs and what it takes to make them work, not just in a coding sense, but within a community as well.

4 - The gem of an idea (which Daddy has set out quite nicely) of creating a Meta OXP that acts as a framework under which other OXPs can operate (essentially an oolite within an oolite). A scripting nightmare I'm sure, but something that would probably create less community angst than directly bundling everyone's oxp into the meta directly.

ClymAngus wrote:

You see I don't know if people want to keep this game a bit "messonic" you know signs and wonders, enigma wrapped in a mystery. Or if they want to blow the doors open. If you want to blow the doors open then the eye candy on the cover has to equal the eye candy in game.

Google oolite, first page:

http://www.oolite.org/

Do you catch my drift?

Its a reimplementation of a game nearly as old as I am so I dont think eyecandy is core to its attraction. Oolite does not intend to be a mass market cutting edge title, it intends to (in my view) keep elite alive, and I think its doing that very well.

Its hardly an enigma wrapped in a mysetery. It comes downloadable as a working binary, which is playable out of the box on all the main operating systems, with hardware requirements not much more than microsoft minesweeper. Nothing more required.

For those who want more there is a vibrant OXP community who document their work on the wiki, and whilst there is room for improvement, it isnt that hard to install a few ships and missions.

"It is amoral to not properly license These unlicensed oxp's need to properly highlighted with a toxic label on the wiki. "

well that's your opinion. i have refused to put licences in any of my OXPs. i come here and make stuff for the fun of it, and to share it around. the licences are a (to me) obnoxious element that only seemed to raise its head when lestradae started trying to justify his OXP. as has been stated multiple times, this always seems to have been a respect issue, not a legal one. i put my ships and station up there for peope to use, play w/ and (i hope) appreciate. if they want to incorporate them into their own work, they can. i would assume if anyone wanted to, they would have the courtesy to ask first, as Drew did. if someone wants to incorporate them and go changing their specs and/or stats w/out asking, as Real Shipyards did, well that's up to them. I ain't happy about it, but neither am i going to get het up about it because the Oolite i run here has my own OXPs on so i'm unnaffected.

i wouldn't dream of going an messing w/ another OXP especially when it's been made abundantly clear the creator was against it. i think this whole debacle could've been avoided w/ some simple courtesy and respect rather than 50 page dabates, strops and legal BS.

i mean, jesus - we all share and learn from each other don't we? there's absolutely nothing more simple to this whole thing that ASKING to borrow/incorrporate/adapt someone else's work. that's all, just ASK. if they say no, for whatever reason, just suck it up and deal w/ it.

Killer Wolf wrote:

"It is amoral to not properly license These unlicensed oxp's need to properly highlighted with a toxic label on the wiki. "

well that's your opinion. i have refused to put licences in any of my OXPs. i come here and make stuff for the fun of it, and to share it around. the licences are a (to me) obnoxious element that only seemed to raise its head when lestradae started trying to justify his OXP. as has been stated multiple times, this always seems to have been a respect issue, not a legal one. i put my ships and station up there for peope to use, play w/ and (i hope) appreciate. if they want to incorporate them into their own work, they can. i would assume if anyone wanted to, they would have the courtesy to ask first, as Drew did. if someone wants to incorporate them and go changing their specs and/or stats w/out asking, as Real Shipyards did, well that's up to them. I ain't happy about it, but neither am i going to get het up about it because the Oolite i run here has my own OXPs on so i'm unnaffected.

i wouldn't dream of going an messing w/ another OXP especially when it's been made abundantly clear the creator was against it. i think this whole debacle could've been avoided w/ some simple courtesy and respect rather than 50 page dabates, strops and legal BS.

i mean, jesus - we all share and learn from each other don't we? there's absolutely nothing more simple to this whole thing that ASKING to borrow/incorrporate/adapt someone else's work. that's all, just ASK. if they say no, for whatever reason, just suck it up and deal w/ it.

Hi KW - reading what Aegidian has stated and the sticky to which Ahruman points us too - while your statements are a Utopian ideal - they are clearly not practicable (anymore) - without a License (i think - I do not know whether your current statement of intent of "putting your work out there" is sufficient - perhaps others could clarify?) then strict non-reuse is the default - not "do with what you will" - whether you feel this is right or wrong - it still is the way it is - it's not fair to point the finger at L - this issue first raised it's head with the Sung textures and then (strangely) like Sauron's lost ring we all forgot about it - until OE came along - OE didn't create the problem it just highlighted (again) that we do not live (even in the Ooniverse) in a Utopia - L's work has fallen foul of the moral and legal debate (as far as I see it) simply because the fluffy/huggy non-Licensing issue of OXPs has allowed such a mess to occur.

We have a chance to fix this now - otherwise - it will absolutely come round again and bite us on the ass and I will be a very sad birdie indeed should I be around long enough to see this happen again.