DarkPlaces Dev Forest Hale Corrects Nexuiz GPL Stance

Time Doctor writes "There has been a lot of information going around about Nexuiz, the GPL, and what the Nexuiz leadership has done. A new interview has gone up with DarkPlaces developer Forest Hale to set things straight. Quoting: 'The original plan was to contact every developer and relicense the Nexuiz 2.5.2 GPL gamecode sources for this title, to ensure authentic gameplay and return some important features to the community for the benefit of everyone. However this gamecode re-licensing attempt did not go well; with the former developers making claims of violations there was no choice but to re-implement the gamecode from scratch on non-GPL sources. As a result there will be no ongoing code contributions back to the community, and the gameplay may differ more than originally planned. This is a very unfortunate outcome but has no significant impact on development. To make this perfectly clear – the game is being reimplemented from scratch; all they share is a name.'"

Comments

CLEAN ROOM re-implemented?

[Rogerborg]

Because otherwise, you know, derivative work, and a thousand years bad juju.

Given what they just tried to do, and the casual disregard they had for licensing until they got caught in the act, I'd say the burden of proof lies with the re-implementors.

Re:CLEAN ROOM re-implemented?

[Rogerborg]

[citation needed]. Seriously. The word "study" does not appear in either GPL version 3 or GPL version 2.

So, what does the GPL actually say, and how does that effect the issue of creating a derivative work?

Re:CLEAN ROOM re-implemented?

[dlapine]

From paragraph 0 of the GPL v2, thanks for the link, btw.

"This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License."

"Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope."

So the GPL doesn't limit your rights for things outside of copying, distro and mods.

Section 4 then steps in-

"You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License.

GPL code doesn't have additional restrictions on it. Once you accept GPL as the basis for your work, you don't get to distribute the modified work with extra terms. So GPL code doesn't have restrictions on things other than copy, distro, and mods. And since it expressly doesn't restrict you in areas other than those 3, you're free to examine and study it to your heart's content.

So there ya go- have fun studying, examining reduplicating the functionality, style and format of the code in question. Just don't copy the code verbatim, or in such as a fashion as to be considered a direct copy.

A reasonable person could see the GPL as encouraging the re-use of ideas, whether by modifying the original code and redistributing it, or by re-implementing those ideas in new code.

Re:GPL freaks

[KDR_11k]

To be fair those freaks were the contributors who wrote the code under the expectation that the codebase will remain free throughout all revisions. When I intend for my work to be used in ANY project, including closed source ones I mark it PD, not GPL.

Re:GPL freaks

[selven]

using the term "Free Software" is implying that someone sides with the FSF and GPL over other open source licenses.

No, the term "free software" implies the four freedoms, nothing more, nothing less. There's lots of pubic domain and BSD-ware which is called free software (eg. Chromium, Postgres, BSD itself). If you're trying to draw a line between free software and open source, the line has already been drawn.

"Slow-paced bullet-oriented shooters"

[Andy Dodd]

Interesting comment LordHavoc makes about the state of console gaming.

Honestly, attempting to bring a fast-paced shooter like Nexuiz to a console is going to fail and fail miserably - there is a reason "slow-paced" shooters are more popular on consoles - fast-paced shooters require a fast and precise control mechanism (mouse + keyboard), console control mechanisms are neither of these. (Which is why I don't play console-based shooters.)