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jay pettitt

jay pettitt

Posted
Posted (edited)

Ok, I'm not a team member but I had a looky and noticed that the thread was closed - which is a shame because some further clarification might be needed.

 

I havn't read the terms and conditions yet, but as far as I know Doom 3 and Id's Doom3 SDK are not released under the GPL. Id only release their code as open source (quite a different thing from letting people play with the source code) several years after release and the shelf life of the product has expired. Neither is GPL a 'non commercial' or 'free' license, it just happens that a lot of free software uses GPL. Meeting the (fairly hefty) requirements of the GPL will almost certainly infringe Id's own copyright as you will be granting the right for anyone to distribute the code commercially (doh). And, just in case you havn't got the gist of this post yet, the GPL has been designed exclusively for the distrubtion of software code. It is next to useless for licensing creative content such as audio, textures, level designs and so on. The deeds offered by Creative Commons are much better suited for that kind of thing.

 

In short. GPL is wholesome and good, but unless you specifically know otherwise, steer well clear. Id will probably mention terms and conditions for distributing Mods in one of their readme files.

Edited by jay pettitt
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jay pettitt

jay pettitt

Posted
Posted (edited)

Apologies, but from your post...

especially considering we would be using an open source SDK, and indeed creating for the specific purpose that people create custom content (levels mainly). And I think GPL would be a pretty good way to go.

...It didn't sound like you're quite as sure as you need to be. The SDK is not open source (GTK Radiant is not open source, only the GTK bit is) and GPL is the wrong license to use because of the reasons I have outlined above, and also because you can not link to closed source libraries (such as the Doom 3 engine) under the terms of the GPL.

 

GPL is a wonderfull thing, but is is not the appropriate license for a Doom 3 mod (I mean that in a legal - you will open your self to cease and dessist notices from ID and the free software foundation if you do - kind of way). Sparhawk is on to a good thing to request clarification of copyright issues, but choosing the right license license requires a little care and attention.

 

Good work so far, by the way. I'm looking forward to contributing some stuff to the project :)

Edited by jay pettitt
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Phil

Phil

Posted
Posted

I posted the license agreement to the quake 3 SDK a little while ago and I believe that everyone had read it. Sorry to tell you but you are a little late. The Doom 3 SDK will be released most likely with the same limited license agreement that the quake 3 SDK was...

-Phil

"The man who learns only what others know is as ignorant as if he learns nothing. The treasures of knowledge are the most rare, and guarded the most harshly."

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jay pettitt

jay pettitt

Posted
Posted (edited)

Don't apologise Phil :)

 

Are you refering to the post you made about mods and Quake 3 being released under the GPL? If not, I have probably missed something and you can ignore the bit below :)

 

ID have re-released the source code for Quake 3 and some of its other games (including the previous incarnations of Doom) as open source under the GPL - but only years after the games were originally released (Quake 3 was only GPLed a few weeks ago, after the release of Doom 3). While the titles are considered commercially viable they are distributed with a closed source license. It will be years before ID even consider releasing Doom 3 under the GPL. ID normally ask that fan made material is distributed freely and non commercially.

 

Don't get me wrong. I'd encourage anyone to be as open with licensing and copyright as possible. I'm a linux user, a fan of the GPL and am contributing to open source projects. But the GPL is not the appropriate license for a Doom 3 mod, they are incompatible in a legal licensy kind of way.

Edited by jay pettitt
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Phil

Phil

Posted
Posted (edited)

Quake 3's Source was never released. Wolf 3d, all of the Doom's, hexen 2 and Quake 2 have. We are discussing Game Source, which is the source that comes with the SDK's, not the full engine source itself.

 

From what I have read. Quake 3 MIGHT be GPLed by the end of 2004.

Edited by Phil

-Phil

"The man who learns only what others know is as ignorant as if he learns nothing. The treasures of knowledge are the most rare, and guarded the most harshly."

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