Question concerning proper protocol for GRF use/distribution

[KeikyuFan]

I'm asking this question in the developer's forum as it concerns your work. I am working on some techniques for generating "geologically correct" heightmaps (terrain simulating real geological events, i.e. erosion, glaciation, sedimentation) and will be generating/posting some sample heightmaps, both in the proper forum as well as on some space on my own website. I also wish to generate some scenarios from my heightmaps that will include certain scenario-appropriate GRF's (North America, Japan, et. al.). Obviously the party downloading the scenario will have to have those GRF's in their own \data directory for them to work. I would like to set this up to be as convenient as possible while properly acknowledging/crediting the creators/contributors, not improperly appropriating someone else intellectual property, and not stepping on anyone's toes.

What is the most acceptable way to do this? List the GRF's on my web site with a direct link and a credit to the creators? Tell the player that they need to find the GRF's themselves? Should I ask each individual GRF ceator what he/she deems is appropriate? Please help me here...

Thanks,

Stan aka KeikyuFan

[DaleStan]

You ask permission from each author, and do what they say to do.

[PikkaBird]

Different grfs have different licences. You could certainly repackage those with licences that allowed them. If you wanted to make sure that players could easily find the required grfs, links to grfcrawler entries are probably easiest and safest. You could also try limiting yourself to grfs on BaNaNaS, that way OTTD (nightly) players will be able to download the grfs from within OTTD.

[Eddi]

Additionally to the list of Pikka, there is the GRF Pack, which you can easily link to

[KeikyuFan]

Different grfs have different licences. You could certainly repackage those with licences that allowed them. If you wanted to make sure that players could easily find the required grfs, links to grfcrawler entries are probably easiest and safest. You could also try limiting yourself to grfs on BaNaNaS, that way OTTD (nightly) players will be able to download the grfs from within OTTD.

Many of them are in BaNaNaS, and two of them (NARS and Aviator's Airfcraft) are yours. BaNaNaS lists your license as "custom", and I'm looking at your wiki page to get more specific info. I understand the general principle for the GNU licensing, I'm not sure what's OK in the case of NARS. Can you clear it up for me, and accept my apologies if I'm missing something? Thanks...

[PikkaBird]

I uploaded a custom licence to bananas with my files (which is basically "no" ). Presumably it puts the licence text somewhere when you download, but I have no idea where. Linking to the grfcrawler entry, the relevent pages on my wiki, or suggesting people download via bananas would be your best options for my grfs.

[KeikyuFan]

I uploaded a custom licence to bananas with my files (which is basically "no" ). Presumably it puts the licence text somewhere when you download, but I have no idea where. Linking to the grfcrawler entry, the relevent pages on my wiki, or suggesting people download via bananas would be your best options for my grfs.

So if I state "The NARS 2.0 GRF by Pikkabird is available at (links to your wiki) or GRF Crawler (link) or downloadable by BaNaNas for R15xxx+ nightlies", will that do the trick? That's all I really wanted to do in the first place...

[PikkaBird]

Of course, that is fine.

[KeikyuFan]

Of course, that is fine.

Thank you.

[Conditional Zenith]

The license gets bundled in with the tarball, so unless you look in the tarball, you don't see the license.

[el koeno]

Different grfs have different licences. You could certainly repackage those with licences that allowed them. If you wanted to make sure that players could easily find the required grfs, links to grfcrawler entries are probably easiest and safest. You could also try limiting yourself to grfs on BaNaNaS, that way OTTD (nightly) players will be able to download the grfs from within OTTD.

Many of them are in BaNaNaS, and two of them (NARS and Aviator's Airfcraft) are yours.

I think you'll find quite a few more GRFs are Pikka's.

I guess bananas will make all this a lot easier. Having never used it, I was wondering if you start a scenario/savegames that uses GRFs that you do not have but are availabe on bananas, will it prompt you to download them?