Message-ID: <3D47E88E.3030903@csi.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 09:39:26 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0rc2) Gecko/20020618 Netscape/7.0b1
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: IF library licence / game licence
References: <3d4632e1.170761705@news.buffalo.edu> <uit2xl4yw.fsf@dfan.thecia.net> <3d46c553.338368@news.buffalo.edu> <3d46febb@excalibur.gbmtech.net> <3d4732de.14420615@news.buffalo.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
NNTP-Posting-Host: ool-182f30fa.dyn.optonline.net
X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: ool-182f30fa.dyn.optonline.net
X-Trace: excalibur.gbmtech.net 1028122315 ool-182f30fa.dyn.optonline.net (31 Jul 2002 09:31:55 -0400)
Organization: ProNet USA Inc.
Lines: 104
X-Authenticated-User: jnc
Path: news.duke.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.abs.net!uunet!dca.uu.net!excalibur.gbmtech.net
Xref: news.duke.edu rec.arts.int-fiction:106874

Stephen L Breslin wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Jul 2002 17:01:30 -0400, "John Colagioia"
> <JColagioia@csi.com> wrote:
[...bunch of stuff I ranted about...]
> Still, we're talking
> mainly about an altogether differently motivated licence, a productive
> licence akin to GPL or so, and we only mentioned the corporate style
> licences to refer to what we're _not_ talking about.

But they're the same thing.  A license of any sort extends rights to
the holder of the license.  The question of "what license" is only
answered by deciding to whom which rights need to be granted.

Microsoft's EULA, for example, boils down to "if you paid a retailer
for this, you have the right to operate the software."  The GPL, by
contrast, basically says that "anyone following the FSF rules can
treat the software, and its source code, as if it were in the Public
Domain."

> Someone was
> confused and thought we were talking about obstructionist licences
> instead....

My point is that no license is obstructionist.  Without the license,
you are not legally permitted to use the software in any way.

There are some that make the software prohibitively expensive to use
for some purposes, and that includes the GPL in some cases.

[...]
>>I suspect a license of, "This library may be used, adapted,
>>and modified in any way without charge, so long as the
>>originating author remains credited," is all most people
>>around here *really* want.  Maybe add a clause that the
>>licensee may not use the product for a commercial project,
>>for authors who care.
> Yes, that's what people normally use. The issue is whether or not this
> can be improved upon with some work.

Improved in what way?  What rights that game programmers want is not
granted?  What rights that library writers would normally like to
reserve is over-granted?

> Can we make a better library
> licence which will provoke the users to make public their use of the
> library?

Is this inherently desirable?  More to the point, is this not
included in the above, concise statement?

> I think this would be useful and "*really* wanted," if it
> were sufficiently worked out and made available.

But *who* wants it?  The FSF supporters?  Game programmers?  Library
programmers?  Game players?  If it isn't one of the central two, then
they have no business making requests, to be blunt.

>>I've used a similar license, in the (non-IF) past, which
>>replaces the credit clause with feedback.  I don't care if
>>someone's making money on something I gave away for free;
>>I don't care if I get credit for it.  I am interested in
>>knowing what sorts of things people think they can use the
>>code for, however.
> That's a good idea, but that limits the benefit to the library writer;

Again, if the library writer licenses his work, his beneits are
limited, by definition.  This happens to be how I like to work, and
is probably not suited to many other programmers (most of whom, I've
found, like having their names plastered all over things; I don't).

The way this typically works is that people e-mail me saying, "I'm
planning to do this."  If it sounds interesting, I'll offer to help
out or replicate the feature in the baseline, and then re-release.

I fail to see how having someone air their complaints publically
would make this better for me, up to the point where I don't care
about the product anymore (at which point, I typically release it
into the Public Domain).

 > it would be more generally useful if this "feedback" were addressed to
 > the community at large, rather than an individual.

The way to do this, then, is to essentially replicate the concept
behind the GPL in a more direct manner.  You need to define "the
community at large," and pass all necessary rights to them.

But...since we've already talked about granted rights, who's in "the
community at large"?  Me?  That mysterious, evil Cabal that
whimsically controls our thoughts?  Imaginary personages who post
messages?  Anyone who happens to stumble on the IF Archive?

Again, GPL says, "anyone who publically gives proper credit and
offers source code" (since that's what the FSF requires), Microsoft
says, "the guy with the receipt," and Public Domain type licenses
say, "anyone who finds this."  This community seems too diverse to be
able to unilaterally use any of these.

Note that I don't think I'm trying to be discouraging.  What I am
definitely trying to do is show that the library writers and library
users are in the best position to judge licensing issues; anybody
else (including, perhaps, me, since I've only "published" one Inform
library, and have already made a licensing decision I'm happy with)
is just an idealist sticking his nose where it doesn't belong.

