[8bpp] Graphics Replacement Project - OpenGFX License

[dihedral]

if you submit a patch to the project, would you want your name to be an a comment before each file/function you have added?
i could tell you quite clearly right now, if you were not able to give up your rights on that patch and hand it over to the OpenTTD project, your patch would not make it very far!

if you want these graphic files to be part of OpenTTD (distributed with OpenTTD), you will moste likely have to do the same.

[Purno]

There's no reason why a contributor's name can't be listed somewhere! It's the least one can do.

[dihedral]

sure - i have also said before, create to whom credit belongs.
never the less, you give up your rights and give it all to OpenTTD basically, and fur sure they will grant credit and name authors (i could even imagine them doing so in the in-game credits list)

[LordAzamath]

No, no, no! In court, lawyers would eat you alive, with that attitude!
Unless the absent artists in question explicitly transfer copyright to another entity, nobody can relicense their work without their permission! If you don't have permission to relicense, you either have to replace the absent artist's works, or commit copyright infringement!

Can you please name one person who would go to court with us because we have their work what they gave us in OpenGFX? And can you tell me one man who has contributed but doesn't want it included?

Anyway, if Athanasios and Foobar too agree, I guess GPL would be the way to go.
And one more thing.. The licence thing is actually quite minor. Please don't get offended if someone thinks differently than you. After all.. The main part is to be able to play with the awesum graphics not whine about what open licence to use.. it's just the easiest way to use GPL .

Everybody will get credited anyway, with both licences, so why worry? The fact that it is possible to make money with these, doesn't mean that someone will try and do it..

Cheer up

[dihedral]

i remember a great gfx author once makeing some hidden 'eastereggs' in his graphics, showing a word in different places when one activated transparency mode

you could also include your names the same way LA hid "wwottdgd2" in his easter.grf

edit: i am still impressed with that plane dragging the flag btw LA

[Raumkraut]

if you submit a patch to the project, would you want your name to be an a comment before each file/function you have added?
i could tell you quite clearly right now, if you were not able to give up your rights on that patch and hand it over to the OpenTTD project, your patch would not make it very far!

I've not been able to find anywhere where it is stated that copyright must be reassigned in order to submit a patch to OpenTTD. In fact, none of the OpenTTD source files I've seen contain any copyright notice at all, despite the advice at the end of the GPL:

To [use the GPL], attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

Though if we assume you're correct, could you point me to the legal entity to which we should assign our copyrights?

if you want these graphic files to be part of OpenTTD (distributed with OpenTTD), you will moste likely have to do the same.

Rubbish. The only requirement is that the nebulous "OpenTTD team" decide that they want to distribute it (whatever license chosen will most certainly allow them to). Have they said that they'll only distribute the data if they "own" it? (seriously, please link to anywhere where they've chipped in!)

[Raumkraut]

Can you please name one person who would go to court with us because we have their work what they gave us in OpenGFX? And can you tell me one man who has contributed but doesn't want it included?

Can you tell the future? Can you accurately know, for certain, that nobody will ever change their mind? Does OpenTTD have the funds to fight a lawsuit, even a spurious one? Do you even want to expose them to that risk?
As they say: "Better safe than sorry".
As I say: "Making plans based on wishful thinking will only end up with you getting... poked in the bottom, shall we say?"

Anyway, if Athanasios and Foobar too agree, I guess GPL would be the way to go.

I propose a "one-pixel, one-vote" system. For every non-transparent pixel contributed you get a single vote on which license to use. Let the pixel-counting begin!

The licence thing is actually quite minor. Please don't get offended if someone thinks differently than you. After all.. The main part is to be able to play with the awesum graphics not whine about what open licence to use.. it's just the easiest way to use GPL .

I disagree. The "license thing" is everything. It's the entire reason for this project's existence, right? If it were only about awesum graphics, we'd just shut the flip up and play with the original graphics!
What is minor, IMO, is the difference between GPL and CC-BY-SA. Except for the whole "GPL is for code, CC for media" thing. Which I think I might've mentioned before.

[Noldo]

Tremulous, for example, is a GPL'd game which has its data licensed under a creative commons license. They don't seem to have had problems with getting distributed (it's in the Debian/Ubuntu repositories).

Tremulous data files are not in the debian main repository because they are licenced under CC-by-sa 2.5 which is not dfsg-free. As I have stated earlier 3.0 version of CC-by-sa would be dfsg-free. Trying to include the dreaded -NC into the mix will make it non-free regardless of the version.

[Raumkraut]

Tremulous data files are not in the debian main repository because they are licenced under CC-by-sa 2.5 which is not dfsg-free.

Ah, right you are. Tremulous is in contrib, but tremulous-data is in non-free. Missed that.

As I have stated earlier 3.0 version of CC-by-sa would be dfsg-free.

I believe I stated that earlier, too.

Trying to include the dreaded -NC into the mix will make it non-free regardless of the version.

Indeed. Some people just don't like others making a living it seems.
(note: the OpenTTD developers are clearly not among them)

[dihedral]

nowhere did i say that what i wrote was publicly mentioned anywhere, you could have saved you time on that search!

and nowhere did i refere to a license stateing that anything other than gpl would go into trunk or be distributed with this project, i was however refering to the developers choice.

[LordAzamath]

The licence thing is actually quite minor. Please don't get offended if someone thinks differently than you. After all.. The main part is to be able to play with the awesum graphics not whine about what open licence to use.. it's just the easiest way to use GPL .

I disagree. The "license thing" is everything. It's the entire reason for this project's existence, right? If it were only about awesum graphics, we'd just shut the flip up and play with the original graphics!
What is minor, IMO, is the difference between GPL and CC-BY-SA. Except for the whole "GPL is for code, CC for media" thing. Which I think I might've mentioned before.

Yes, that's what I meant.. Just having trouble expressing myself sometimes in English
But tell me the exact reasons you don't like GPL or you are just answering to this because you can?

@dih.. Yeh lol.. I think though that I won't do the same trick here again.. I mean if I put transparency on, I would not like to see "Richard Wheeler" or something all the time ..

[dihedral]

LA: one letter in each sprite (sorry to those who cannot spell out their name )

[Raumkraut]

But tell me the exact reasons you don't like GPL or you are just answering to this because you can?

In the apparent absence of an actual IP lawyer, I'm commenting here (and in such quantities!) because I know something about licensing, have actually read the entire GPL (:shock:), and hope to help people make slightly more informed, rather than just emotive, decisions (I seem to be failing ).
I personally don't particularly mind which of the suggested licenses my contributions are released using, but I would prefer a license specifically written for that which we are licensing (ie. media).

The GPL was simply not written to apply to anything other than source code. In the case of artworks, it contains ambiguous and inappropriate terminology.

I think that about covers it.

[dihedral]

if you believe you are the only guy in these forums who has read the GPL and other lisence right through, then i am sorry to disappoint you! quite a few people have done so on more than one occasion!

furthermore, grf's are not solely artwork, if i am not mistaken (please correct me if i am wrong here)

and again - if you give opengfx to openttd, it will be part of a larger source tree, and the grf's will actually appear as a rather small part, when comparing to the amount of source code available.

[Zephyris]

I propose a "one-pixel, one-vote" system. For every non-transparent pixel contributed you get a single vote on which license to use. Let the pixel-counting begin!

I like that idea, it would keep it simple! I would easily have the majority!

[athanasios]

Then why are we arguing here?

I hate GPL.

A clever guy can make cups with our artwork and fill his pockets. Oh, he may contribute 0.1% of the profits to the project too.

A company takes our sprites and uses them in a commercial TTD clone game where it adds 20% more sprites which are copyrighted and we cannot use them in OTTD. Remember this is not code. Extra artwork is different artwork, not patching of existing code.

[FooBar]

Instead of GPL we can far better opt for the CC BY-SA license. The license terms are similar, but CC saves us the hassle of source code availability and attribution rules are more strict. Also, CC BY-SA complies to the DFSG.

I propose a "one-pixel, one-vote" system.

Seconded!

[michael blunck]

Unless the absent artists in question explicitly transfer copyright to another entity, nobody can relicense their work without their permission! If you don't have permission to relicense, you either have to replace the absent artist's works, or commit copyright infringement!

AFAIR, this was exactly one main reason for the failure of Peter Dobrovka´s (author of "3D Transport Tycoon / Schiene und Strasse") suit against Virtual X-Citement / UbiSoft.

regards
Michael

[Torrasque]

A company takes our sprites and uses them in a commercial TTD clone game where it adds 20% more sprites which are copyrighted and we cannot use them in OTTD. Remember this is not code. Extra artwork is different artwork, not patching of existing code.

Yes, GPL was made for code, not graphics.
But CC-BY-SA have the same spirit than the OTTD license but with better wording for art.

I think this license is worst looking into.

[CMircea]

Guys, you forget one thing. CC-BY-SA, CC-BY and even more the NC ones are incompatible with the GPL. Hence, OpenGFX can not be bundled with OpenTTD without explicit permission from both the authors of OpenGFX and from the authors of OpenTTD. Free Software Foundation said. Now OpenGFX authors can easily do that, but AFAIK there are some hard to find OpenTTD authors and we odn't know yet if they would agree with this. Better pick GPL or a compatible license (GFDL is NOT compatible either). Determining the source code of OpenFGX for GPL is pretty trivial.