Oolite Bulletins

Just after some clarification. I'm under the impression that Oolite is now GPL, but the artwork (including models, textures and music) is under a CC license that prohibits commercial distribution and derivatives. Is this generally the case? If one were to take full advantage of the additional freedoms under the GPL to box up and sell the product for profit, would alternative artwork need to be created? Basically, does the GPL only cover the engine?

The artwork is dual-licensed under the GPL and the Creative Commons by-nc-sa license. This means you may use it under either license.

Could someone cut through the legal lingo and tell me what we cannot do with what instead of what we can do.

Not that I have any plans of doing anything, I'd just like to know.

[Wonders how confusing the laws would be if they told us what we were allowed to do and we then had to infer from that what was illegal.]

I'm curious, that's all.

No one would force you to read the answer.

(Off topic comment Removed by moderator)

For Creative Commons licenses, you can get a nice, neat summary in the form of Creative Commons Deeds (which I linked to in the announcement post):

• Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Deed, for resources (i.e., non-source code files).
• Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Deed, for previous releases (back to and including 1.39).

There is no official equivalent for the GPL, which is a more complicated license with a big baggage of politics. However, the Creative Commons project has a similar Deed summarising the GPL.

The general intent of all the licenses used for Oolite now and in the past is that you may modify it, in whole or in part, as long as you don’t claim to have created it; however, you must distribute any modifications you make under the same terms. As of the transition to the GPL, you may also sell it (but not attempt to restrict your customers from redistributing it) – although Messrs. B&B may have ideas about that.

Expressing licenses in terms of what you can do without touching on what you can’t do is inherently intractable, because managing restrictions on what you’re permitted to do is what licensing is all about.

Ahruman wrote:

The general intent of all the licenses used for Oolite now and in the past is that you may modify it, in whole or in part, as long as you don’t claim to have created it; however, you must distribute any modifications you make under the same terms. As of the transition to the GPL, you may also sell it (but not attempt to restrict your customers from redistributing it) – although Messrs. B&B may have ideas about that.

Thanks. I remember reading somewhere that Oolite could not be made part of some OS distribution because of the old license.

Perhaps some Mac users could petition MacWorld to put it on their cover CD - they recently gave the game a really nice review on their site.

I weeded out +everything+ offtopic here.

Keep it civil, guys. Please.

spoil sport

Brianetta wrote:

Just after some clarification. I'm under the impression that Oolite is now GPL, but the artwork (including models, textures and music) is under a CC license that prohibits commercial distribution and derivatives. Is this generally the case? If one were to take full advantage of the additional freedoms under the GPL to box up and sell the product for profit, would alternative artwork need to be created? Basically, does the GPL only cover the engine?

So to make it clear:

• Oolite (the engine) is GPL 2.0 or later (at choice)/CC-NC-SA (2.0 for releases until now, 3.0 from now on)
  Oolite-data is CC-NC-SA (2.0 for releases until now, 3.0 from now on)

Is this correct?


BTW, this means that Oolite will be moved from non-free to contrib section in Debian. It can't be moved in main since it depends on the dsfg non-free licensed oolite-data, 'though.

eddyp wrote:

So to make it clear:

• Oolite (the engine) is GPL 2.0 or later (at choice)/CC-NC-SA (2.0 for releases until now, 3.0 from now on)
  Oolite-data is CC-NC-SA (2.0 for releases until now, 3.0 from now on)

Is this correct?

No.
From now on, Oolite (the application) is GPL 2 or later only. The data is GPL 2 or later, or CC-by-nc-sa 3.0.

Ahruman wrote:

eddyp wrote:

So to make it clear:

• Oolite (the engine) is GPL 2.0 or later (at choice)/CC-NC-SA (2.0 for releases until now, 3.0 from now on)
  Oolite-data is CC-NC-SA (2.0 for releases until now, 3.0 from now on)

Is this correct?

No.
From now on, Oolite (the application) is GPL 2 or later only. The data is GPL 2 or later, or CC-by-nc-sa 3.0.

OOOOH GOODY, oh goody, oh Lord, oh Lord

This means actually that Oolite will be able to be moved in main .

Is the thing (is also GPLed) about data true for 1.65 ? If so, I will have to make a fast upload in Debian so is part of the new Debian release which is really soon to come.

eddyp wrote:

Is the thing about data true for 1.65 ? If so, I will have to make a fast upload in Debian so is part of the new Debian release which is really soon to come.

The dual-licensing applies retroactively to 1.65 (but not earlier). 1.65 may also be distributed under CC-by-nc-sa 2.0. However, there is currently no distribution of 1.65 with license files that reflect this.

Ahruman wrote:

eddyp wrote:

Is the thing about data true for 1.65 ? If so, I will have to make a fast upload in Debian so is part of the new Debian release which is really soon to come.

The dual-licensing applies retroactively to 1.65 (but not earlier). 1.65 may also be distributed under CC-by-nc-sa 2.0. However, there is currently no distribution of 1.65 with license files that reflect this.

So, in other words, 1.65 will be dual licensed both the engine and the data, while later releases will be gpl for source and gpl/cc-nc-sa for data?

(Sorry for being so persistent, I need to know this for sure in order to move the game from the non-free section to main or contrib, depending on the answer to the question above).

Yes. Technically the data for 1.65 is tripple-licensed, since CC-by-nc-sa 2.0 and CC-by-nc-sa 3.0 are different licenses, but it may be distributed in its entirety under the GPL.

Ahruman wrote:

Yes. Technically the data for 1.65 is tripple-licensed, since CC-by-nc-sa 2.0 and CC-by-nc-sa 3.0 are different licenses, but it may be distributed in its entirety under the GPL.

Excellent. I will prepare an upload for Oolite in debian with the necessary changes for it to enter the main section!

/me does the "this software is liberated software" dance