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Nexuiz Founder Licenses It For Non-GPL Use

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-anger-your-base dept.

King InuYasha writes "Nexuiz founder Lee Vermuelen, along with several other core developers, have licensed the Nexuiz name, Nexuiz.com domain, and DarkPlaces engine to Illfonic in a deal to get Nexuiz on consoles. However, the kink is that the engine has been licensed for non-GPL usage. That is, Illfonic has no intention of contributing their code back to the main GPL Nexuiz project. As a result, Nexuiz has been forked into a new project called Xonotic. While the main Nexuiz site doesn't mention that Illfonic has no intention of contributing back, the Xonotic project FAQ explains what's going on. Additionally, the Xonotic project states that Illfonic 'may be in violation of the GPL as most contributors to the Nexuiz codebase have not relicensed their work for inclusion in a closed-source project.'"

5 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. WTF is Nexuiz? (since the submitter didn't bother by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Google answers:

    Nexuiz is a first-person shooter which started as a Quake modification in the summer of 2001

  2. Re:id's code is GPL too by binarylarry · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nope, id is happy to provide commercial licenses to replace the GPL in their open source offerings: http://www.idsoftware.com/business/idtech3/

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  3. Re:What's really happening here? by LordHavoc · · Score: 5, Informative

    The engine has been licensed as non-GPL for Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360, these are very closed platforms and the game had no chance of reaching them under GPL, publishers would not touch it.

    IllFonic actively promotes the GPL Nexuiz for all operating systems.

    The console game code is being started fresh now that GDC is over, no GPL claims can apply to it.

    Note: Nexuiz 1.0 was to be a commercial game in the first place, but was GPLed for the enjoyment of everyone, this deal pertains to the name and concept, not the community enhancements that occurred after the original release.

    --
    "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." - James Klass
  4. Some real info: by Tei · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are a lot of quake game engines, most of then have a single person behind. Behind DarkPlaces is Lord Havoc.

    • Lord Havoc plan to commit to the GPL DarkPlaces version all the features that are worth it. This excluse any SDK bit, since the PS3 SDK EULA don't able to share that part. This mean that even if Illfonic will not contribute, Lord Havoc will, and that is what is important.
    • Illfonic have a license to use the engine from Id Software. And a license from Lord Havoc. If theres part for other people, will be removed/replaced by Lord Havoc code. The result will be a fully legal and Illfonic licensed closed source version of DarkPlaces
    • The new version of Nexuiz for consoles seems awesome. This is only good news for Nexuiz, that will get more exposure, more code ,...

    We normally see the other route, ... a closed source game (Quake engine from Quake) open source his engine. A open source game is created from a closed source game (FreeCiv from Civ ). This route is "new", a open source game spawns a closed source game.

    There has ben some discussions on the forums, but It has been mostly about the use of the name. Is like how Firefox started as Phoenix so got renamed to Firebird... (only to be renamed again to Firefox!). But this time Illfonic let the community continue using the name.. . Of course, some people really dislike the very idea :-/. To this date, not contributor has claimed steal code or something like that.

    Vermeulen is a hardworking individual, and has push this game (nexuiz) for more than 9 years now (And If you have work on a open source project, you know how hard is to get people moving forward). I have only good things to say about Lord Havoc and the very high quality of his code. He control all the code of DarkPlaces to be of the best quality possible, this mean rewriting things to get to his standard of quality. Is this rewriting all code that probably has made possible to closed-source the engine.

    HOW?

    1) You get the original source code from the Id Software FTP, and a license for it (probably legacy, since is not for sale now).
    2) You put all that code in the CVS. This code is the original, and you have a license for it.
    3) Lord Havoc commit all his code changes to this CVS. Since he own his own changes (he is the author of these changes) he can do it.
    4) The resulting code is both authored by Id Software and Lord Havoc.
    5) This code is licensed by Lord Havoc to Illphonic (Illphonic already have a license from Id Software).
    6) If theres some code from other authors, Illphonic acquire rights from these authors.
    7) TADA!... you have a closed source engine you can use to create games for XBox 360 and Playstation 3 (I suppose lots of changes are needed to achieve this compatibility, but you have the basics of the engine).

    The authors of a work can "relicense" his work. This why Id Software can release the quake source engine as gpl AND a different license. Lord Havoc is the same as Id Software, so is doing the exact same thing, releasing his work on a different license.

    --

    -Woof woof woof!

  5. Re:You must have an different definition of freedo by headkase · · Score: 4, Informative

    Then don't use it. Anywhere. The Freedom to rip it off is not included. It's is - as someone else mentioned - Freedom for EVERYONE not Freedom for YOU.

    --
    Shh.