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Nexuiz Founder Licenses It For Non-GPL Use
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.'"
The people who contributed their code to Nexuiz under a Freedom license have every right to be pissed if their code is then sold off against their wishes. If the Nexuiz developers want to do so then stop stealing and re-write what isn't yours. The GPL isn't a charity to be exploited - it is a philosophy that says cooperation enriches everyone. If you don't agree with GPL code: DON'T USE IT and write your freaking own. Leaches.
Shh.
Without John Carmack and LordHavoc (Darkplaces engine developer) giving permission, they're in a huge mess. I wonder if they are using anything slurped up from other Quake engine projects? Even if the submitter of the code signed off, doesn't matter if they aren't the original author.
Relicensing your code is fine, doing it to others... Well, people get in trouble with that with stolen commercial code as well as GPL. It's dishonest, no matter who it's done to, if it's not done with permission (either direct from all authors or through the terms of the license), they're opening themselves for a world of hurt. And destroying their reputation, as well.
If the only thing that is truly being closed up is the interpreted gamecode and they are developing new artwork, there's nothing to see here...
Google answers:
Nexuiz is a first-person shooter which started as a Quake modification in the summer of 2001
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!
And there you have it folks, tyranny is freedom! Without the freedom to establish tyranny, nobody is free.
(I know, I know - don't feed the BSD trolling)
If you wanted true freedom you shouldn't've used code licensed under the GPL. The GPL's interpretation of "freedom" is freedom for EVERYONE, not just for YOU. So while you have free use of the code in question, everyone else has free use of any changes you may make to it. The idea is that if we leave it up to peoples' good wills to ensure freedom, we'll all live in slavery, so we'll legally force everyone to let everyone else be free. Seems to be working out OK.
There are a lot of quake game engines, most of then have a single person behind. Behind DarkPlaces is Lord Havoc.
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!
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.
You are confusing freedom and sovereignty, as no doubt are others in this discussion. Your sovereignty is reduced if any action is not available to you. Sovereignty is a one-to-many relationship, freedom is maximized to the extent that all persons are free and that persons are not allowed to act as sovereigns over the rest. Thus, law providing fairness, for example the sharing implemented in the GPL, both increases freedom and limits a sovereign.
Bruce Perens.