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Jon

risen3d licencing discussion

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as Julian has pointed out, the release announcement is not the correct place to debate the Risen3D licencing issue. So, here's a thread dedicated to the topic instead.

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Engines should not be mixing different games without a "go ahead" from the makers in the form of compatible licenses. In the end it also contributes license conflicts and junk in the game resources as well; id Software has never condoned using the resources from one game on another, even when it comes to very similar games; DOOM/DOOM II/Heretic/etc.

Both ZDeamon (ZDoom) and JDoom do this, and are as a result in a messy development situation in some cases or offshoots. ZDoom probably has the best answer to the issue (not that I like it too much, because of the resources issue), although Eternity may be another more or less effective answer to such situations.

Jon, you said something about JDoom linking stuff during runtime, though not long ago I suggested something like that about some DLL or something in an Eternity (or PrBoom) thread and the answer was negative.

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deep said:
Give it a REST for god's sake. This has been gone over a billion times. Both DaniJ and Graf know EXACTLY what was said (shame on both of you for deliberately not "remembering"). And so do you.

No, It is a theft of code - that is why it gets brought up all the time. You too use that code in your "R3Dedit" - that doesn't make you any better.

deep said:First off, JDOOM is NOT legal GPL and that's a simple FACT. You CAN NOT mix DOOM, HERETIC and HEXEN sources and claim to have a GPL project.

This is amply demonstrated by ZDOOM where this very issue prevents it from being GPL (not to mention BUILD code too).

Zdoom is a single binary work. Doomsday is not - rip out the raven licensed source and it still works. If you include a file under the GPL, you become bound by that license too. If you can not satisify all terms you may not redistribute the resulting binary. That being the case we can easily turn off the raven code in a build if it is required, after all, they are seperate modules loaded at runtime. As a whole that means we must release the source, and the raven licese forbids commercial exploitation (that code is thankfully much less in current releases). Both of which we are in complience with.

deep said:Besides that (not that it actually makes the JDOOM conflicts any different), if you "forget" to put the GPL license in the sources, you've just released it under the licenses included. And that's also what happened back then and even much later in later versions. You can't go back in time and undo what was done.

Actually - we did license the source, we clearly had the GPL license text in there. Will you now go berate Id software for not stamping GPL boilerplate over all files after they relicensed Doom in 1999 ?

deep said:This has absolutely NOTHING to do with copyright. Only shows how confused you are about the differences between licensing and copyrights.

I suggest you go back and learn how licensing works, as you obviously don't understand it. Licensing is governed under the rules of Copyright. An author has the right to restrict the useage of their work, and those licenses are the terms of use. Risen3D has violated the terms of use, and as such is a copyright violation.

deep said:So go ahead and make trouble and then JDOOM is also in trouble. And that's a LOT easier to prove - since the licences clearly are contradictory. It technically can not be GPL period!

Show some balls and clearly state what you intend to do about it. I would dearly love to see the contradictions you harp on about - as I'm quite certain we fufill every requirement listed.

deep said:So be nice and quit trying to cause trouble for no good reason, other then to pretend to know something that you know nothing about.

You mean be quiet, so you and others can steal the work - I think not.

deep said:Abbs, Hawkwind and Graham are ALL different people. And that I'm "sure" about. Just drop it and get something better to post about vs making up imaginary arguments.

Current evidence suggests that they are the same person, if they are not, they can easily prove it. For starters, they can stop hiding their identies.

deep said:And you and Graf and others ALL conceded that this was true.

Actually, everyone got tired of your bull and stopped paying attention to your posts.

deep said:Not understanding the issue of not including the license (which is part of the problem here) only means you need to learn the issue here. Go look at the ZDOOM forum and see what RH posted. She clearly understands the problem of mixing licenses. JDOOM just chose to ignore the problem, that doesn't mean it's not a problem. If you recall, JDOOM technically could be banned from where the source is posted since it's not valid GPL source.

I don't think Randy is a "she". I see - you are threating to get the sf.net hosting revoked. Please - do show where we don't meet the license terms of ALL the licenses.

deep said:Or do we pick and chose what we rant and rave about?

Think about it.

I see gzdoom source is clearly available - I don't see Risen3D source. Clearly gzdoom is attempting to comply with it's license obligations and Risen3D is not.

To be quite honest, I believe you deep have a lot to do with Risen3D not meeting it's obligations. One can only guess as to why you would do such a thing.

Remember folks - there is an easy pain free solution - All Risen3D needs to to is either a) release the source or b) cease distribution.

I prefer a) but b) is also a viable alternative if they really think they have "Super secret" algorithms they must hide.

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Yagisan said:
Will you now go berate Id software for not stamping GPL boilerplate over all files after they relicensed Doom in 1999 ?

It appears that id Software never agreed to licensing Doom under the GPL as a whole (company). John Carmack made his agreement with us (the DOOM community) independently, not disputing or altering the '97 license in any way, just adding the GPL license alongside for the community to use, encouraging it personally.

That's how when you go to the idstuff sources folder you find a copy of the Doom sources that makes no mention of the GPL, and instead the original DOOM license.

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myk said:
It appears that id Software never agreed to licensing Doom under the GPL as a whole (company). John Carmack made his agreement with us (the DOOM community) independently, not disputing or altering the '97 license in any way, just adding the GPL license alongside for the community to use, encouraging it personally.

That's how when you go to the idstuff sources folder you find a copy of the Doom sources that makes no mention of the GPL, and instead the original DOOM license.

I can see that (I have those same sources as well). He's dual licensed it - it is regreatable that they did not release a new source package with the new terms in it, but by that time there were already several ports in development.

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Note that Julian also asked people to cool down. So please keep this as a discussion, not a slanging match. Or thread go byebye.

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Grazza said:

Note that Julian also asked people to cool down. So please keep this as a discussion, not a slanging match. Or thread go byebye.

My thought exactly.

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Yagisan, JDoom is in violation of the Sourceforge terms of service because you are using SF resources to host software which is not open source, specifically the Raven-licensed code.

EDIT: removed an inapropriate comment.

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Lets gets things right.

Doomsday is the name of the project and the engine. The Doomsday engine contains no Raven licensed code (if deep wishes to contest this then I would like him to point out what and where).

jDoom is a plugin which can be ran with Doomsday. It contains no Raven licensed code.

Technically, you are right (deep, Adjapted) in that the inclusion of the jHeretic and jHexen plugin sources in the svn IS in violation of the SourceForge terms of service.

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Ajapted said:

Yagisan, JDoom is in violation of the Sourceforge terms of service because you are using SF resources to host software which is not open source, specifically the Raven-licensed code.

The discrimation against field of endevour clause. I've been systimaticaly, along with the rest of the team, been removing all raven licensed source. We can remove that source today and still have a working engine, unlike others that also host there. I'm curious, why did you grant a GPL exception to Risen3D for GLBSP ?

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Instead of trying to deflect the issue back at Doomsday can you please tell us why the Risen3D source is not public?

According to sitters, Risen3D's source WILL be made public at some point. Please enlighten us as to why it can not be released today, to fulfill your license obligations?

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Does Deep have the source codes of Risen3D to make and support the R3DEdit? Or does he use source codes of DoomsDay for his commercial purposes (R3DEdit@DeePsea)? If so why authors of base port and those who have made bigger piece of this GPL stuff cannot obtain these source codes? It's really disrespectful.

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I really don't think this is going anywhere but I feel I have at least to comment the following remark Deep made:

Interestingly, you said that GZDOOM started with PRBOOM GL code, hence GZDOOM has to be GPL. Yet it can't be because of license conflicts I pointed out above.


Yes I have used PrBoom's GL renderer as a starting point to write my own but there's absolutely nothing left of it.

All I used PrBoom for was to have a framework in which to test my own code.

Don't forget that all of this happened long before I even started thinking about releasing it. I replaced the code not because of licensing needs but because I needed something different for the things I wanted it to be able to do.
At the time where a release seemed possible for the first time I had replaced all of PrBoom's original code with my own and some parts of it (e.g. the sprite and flat renderer) have gone through more than one complete rewrite from scratch.

The only thing left are some rough concepts how to handle a few things but last time I checked you couldn't put some basic ideas under a source code license.

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I think more effort needs to be made to contact whomever claims the rights to the Risen3d code. I realise that emails have been sent, and quite a bit of time has passed, but how about a campaign to contact them in the Real World? Do we know their real names, addresses, cities that they live in? We could do a search for their phone numbers based on this information, and just give them a short call to see if they are willing to email us the code. There really shouldn't be all this fighting going on, let's take it easy and try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

That being said, I'm not one who has any claim to the code in question, so I don't have any emotional attachment to what comes out of this. I'm just offering suggestions so that we can keep the community standing, and allow everyone to live in peace and harmony.

</hippybullshit>

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Phil1984 said:

*sits back and eats popcorn*

These legalists are an amusing breed, aren't they?

I'll have carrots and peanut butter though.

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sitters said:

I think as long as the community's stays negative and attacks Risen3D, the source never comes. :)

Such things do not depend on mood.

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entryway said:
Does Deep have the source codes of Risen3D to make and support the R3DEdit? Or does he use source codes of DoomsDay for his commercial purposes (R3DEdit@DeePsea)?

The main thing here in my mind, and what should be clarified, is whether a GPLed program can indeed be linked to modules under a license like Raven's. Here's the thread where I asked Quasar about adding a DLL with Heretic stuff to Eternity and distributing it separately (as an addon for Eternity). He said that was not possible. Is he wrong? Is this different from what Doomsday does with JHeretic and JHexen?

If they can be linked, I'd say the Doomsday team is correct and Risen3D is in violation of the copyright, if not, then Doomsday can't really be under the GPL and is under the DOOM license instead, and what the Risen3D author is doing is not illegal, even if we might not like that he doesn't release the source.

PS: Comments about how amusing it is to see a thread about something likely to cause a flamewar, or about disinterest in the subject, especially one liners, aren't very helpful. I think this is a matter quite worth discussing.

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myk said:

The main thing here in my mind, and what should be clarified, is whether a GPLed program can indeed be linked to modules under a license like Raven's. Here's the thread where I asked Quasar about adding a DLL with Heretic stuff to Eternity and distributing it separately (as an addon for Eternity). He said that was not possible. Is he wrong? Is this different from what Doomsday does with JHeretic and JHexen?

I've spoke to both Debian and Ubuntu about this before when I first began packaging The Doomsday Engine.

Due to the modular achitecture, they can be dynamically loaded at runtime, as there is a clear programming interface between them. In the GPL FAQ ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins ) we are the borderline case. Why is Doomsday then not in Ubuntu or Debian ? it is because the Raven license does not specifically grant redistribution rights, and they, not being copyright holders need that (see eg http://revu.tauware.de/details.py?upid=483 ). I made the decision to not remove the raven licensed modules as our users did not wish for me to do so.

myk said:

If they can be linked, I'd say the Doomsday team is correct and Risen3D is in violation of the copyright, if not, then Doomsday can't really be under the GPL and is under the DOOM license instead, and what the Risen3D author is doing is not illegal, even if we might not like that he doesn't release the source

They can indeed be dynamically loaded. Heres a simple experimen. Download Doomsday and delete jheretic.dll and jhexen.dll. Does Doomsday still run ? of course it does, but you have just removed the raven licensed code. Now - Does Risen3D have a "JHeretic" or "jHexen" plugin ?

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myk said:

The main thing here in my mind, and what should be clarified, is whether a GPLed program can indeed be linked to modules under a license like Raven's. Here's the thread where I asked Quasar about adding a DLL with Heretic stuff to Eternity and distributing it separately (as an addon for Eternity). He said that was not possible. Is he wrong? Is this different from what Doomsday does with JHeretic and JHexen?



As far as I (and my company's lawyer) understand it it's the distribution that matters. If you distribute the non-GPL code as a completely separate plugin it doesn't fall under the GPL as long as you don't need some GPL'd interface code.

But if you package everything together as one package (like Doomsday) the entire thing has to be treated as one entity.

But the wording of this particular clause is so unspecific that opinions differ.

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It's not possible for Eternity because I don't have the time or patience currently to create a DLL/SO interface for Eternity. It's pretty complicated, defining all the exports, dividing stuff into engine/game divisions, and duplicating all the appropriate definitions into redundant header files for the game DLLs. Doable, sure. Quick and easy, no.

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Graf Zahl said:

As far as I (and my company's lawyer) understand it it's the distribution that matters. If you distribute the non-GPL code as a completely separate plugin it doesn't fall under the GPL as long as you don't need some GPL'd interface code.

But if you package everything together as one package (like Doomsday) the entire thing has to be treated as one entity.

But the wording of this particular clause is so unspecific that opinions differ.

That's right, if you "package everything together as one package". It's THAT simple. Nowhere does it say, this license belongs to that and that license belongs to that. It's not MY job to figure that out.

That the authors are sloppy and don't want to understand all the legal rules is not my problem.

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Yagisan said:

.. random stuff ..

You really like to make stuff up.

COPYRIGHT and LICENSING are indeed 2 completely different topics. You can have a LICENSE and yet not have the copyright. How can that be? You can learn if you want to learn.

Whether a program is a single binary work or not has absolutely NOTHING to do with this discussion. Is Linux a "single" binary work. Your argument is a very simplistic view of how things work.

In this case, it's merely a matter of style and design. Since both ZDOOM and JDOOM(etc) do exactly the same thing in terms of playing the games, this is obviously an author design preference.

It's very simple to break a program into dynamic "pieces" if you start out that way (as noted it gets tedious later). In fact, almost all programs are dynamically linked to stuff they need, and for window programs they all interface with "outside" code that is also dynamically linked. That code is NOT under the control of the author, hence those programs clearly don't share the same license. But if an author is in complete control of ALL the components, then the whole shebang follows the SAME rules.

Whether GZDOOM changed the actual code doesn't actually matter. The key is that he DERIVED the current code from PRBOOM. IOW, just because he changed the source code doesn't mean he still isn't bound by the original source.

It's WHERE you got the actual original work from that counts. So if someone says that's where they started (and he just confirmed), then that's where they started. Eternity author (or maybe someobody else) was also originally confused by that, thinking that by "rewriting" the original code everything is now peachy. It's not.

If that were true, then no code is safe since it's fairly easy to "redo" source code and have the same result. In fact, licenses have explicit wording that prevents that sort of derivation - such as decompiling and then reconstructing your own source that most likely is not the same as the original. Yet you still violated the License.

Furthermore, your own argument undermines you. You said "If you include a file under the GPL, you become bound by that license too" You forget that applies to ALL the licenses, not just GPL. And throwing ALL the licenses together in a hodgepodge thinking that covers all contigencies is just being plain ignorant of how this works.

Id released 2 licenses and you can pick and chose which one you want. ZDOOM picked the FIRST one which is NOT GPL.

It's not about stamping the files at all, it's about the EXTERNAL licenses.

I suggest you go back and learn how licensing works, as you obviously don't understand it.
Good idea - suggest you follow your own advice. I've spent well over $100,000 on legal advice on this very subject. What have you spent?

The rest is a complete misunderstanding of the differences between Copyright and Licensing. First off, the original Copyright is mostly ID's, not any author. They LICENSED the source for use by others. IOW, any new author really can't claim "copyright" to the whole work. Nor can they control the Licensing to the whole work, but instead have to respect the individual licenses granted to them. If they conflict, the most restrictive applies.

My "balls" are simple. I don't like bullies, especially ones that are underinformed. Like I said, all I intend to do is to make this a level playing field.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

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Graf Zahl said:
As far as I (and my company's lawyer) understand it it's the distribution that matters. If you distribute the non-GPL code as a completely separate plugin it doesn't fall under the GPL as long as you don't need some GPL'd interface code.

Here the FAQ is dealing with that in a direct way:

If you do [use a non-free library], your program won't be fully usable in a free environment. If your program depends on a non-free library to do a certain job, it cannot do that job in the Free World. If it depends on a non-free library to run at all, it cannot be part of a free operating system such as GNU; it is entirely off limits to the Free World.

Thus we can consider JDoom to be fine under the GPL, as long as the JHeretic and JHexen (if we consider them borderline libraries) parts aren't distributed with the main package or in Free channels (such as Sourceforge or in other Free distribution packages, like Linux distros).

Quasar said:
It's not possible for Eternity because I don't have the time or patience currently to create a DLL/SO interface for Eternity. It's pretty complicated, defining all the exports, dividing stuff into engine/game divisions, and duplicating all the appropriate definitions into redundant header files for the game DLLs. Doable, sure. Quick and easy, no.

Well, that's good to hear, while I can see Eternity is adding Heretic support mostly to expand the array of features used for making DOOM addons, it sounds like if one were sufficienly motivated one could, let's say, build Heretic (or even Hexen) support into a PrBoom offshoot, with demo compatibility and all, as long as the proper packaging and distribution procedures were followed for the Raven-based support modules, that would be an optional thing.

By the way, that same GPL FAQ answer seems to include the question which you followed to make an alternate way to support Heretic features:

So please consider: can you find a way to get the job done without using this library? Can you write a free replacement for that library?

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myk said:

Thus we can consider JDoom to be fine under the GPL, as long as the JHeretic and JHexen (if we consider them borderline libraries)


NO - they are not libraries. That is obfuscating (confusing) the definition of libraries. By that sort of logic one can defeat any licensing agreement. This also cuts 2 ways.

Besides that, JDOOM also has code from ZDOOM and that clearly is also a violation. Not to mention that ACS is going to part of DOOM and that is only more piled on top of more evidence of GPL conflicts.

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[QUOTE]deep said:
[B]

Yagisan said:

Whether GZDOOM changed the actual code doesn't actually matter. The key is that he DERIVED the current code from PRBOOM. IOW, just because he changed the source code doesn't mean he still isn't bound by the original source.


Of course it matters. There's a huge difference between changing code and replacing code in its entirety and the GPL is very specific about a developer's right to alter the license of his own code. No developer has the right to impose restrictions on how I use my own code.

Read this:

These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works.


So, I took my own code out of the PrBoom context, put it in a ZDoom context and due to the needs of the engine relicensed it. All perfectly legal.

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deep said:

NO - they are not libraries. That is obfuscating (confusing) the definition of libraries. By that sort of logic one can defeat any licensing agreement. This also cuts 2 ways.


As the clauses are not clear enough we'd need a judge's decision to know what it really means. Too bad that legalese and clear language are mutually exclusive. It's all open to interpretation.

There's some serious inconsitencies anyway: According to the FSF's FAQ having a GPL'd interpreter run non-GPL'd code is fine but doing the same on a binary level is not. I wonder how well that might hold up in a court.

Besides that, JDOOM also has code from ZDOOM and that clearly is also a violation.


Not really. ZDoom's BSD licensed code can be used in GPL projects. The licenses are compatible enough. The only thing you may not do is alter the copyright.

Not to mention that ACS is going to part of DOOM and that is only more piled on top of more evidence of GPL conflicts.


Only if Raven's ACS interpreter is used. You might as well use ZDoom's independently developed one to escape this trap.

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Graf Zahl said:

Of course it matters. There's a huge difference between changing code and replacing code in its entirety and the GPL is very specific about a developer's right to alter the license of his own code. No developer has the right to impose restrictions on how I use my own code.

Read this:

So, I took my own code out of the PrBoom context, put it in a ZDoom context and due to the needs of the engine relicensed it. All perfectly legal.


That's not really as clear as you want it to be. If you can take code "out of context" that easily, then why are we having this discussion at all?

You forget that the context is actually the same - it's a DOOM engine for god's sake. You didn't use it for a spreadsheet program did you :)

For that matter the RISEN3D code is extensively rewritten with brand new code. For example, I completely redid the texture code and the model code and so forth. I didn't care for many of the style issue in the code, so those were canned. And Graham redid the rendering extensively as well as adding the BOOM extensions otherwise you wouldn't have BOOM and 3D support (latter is quite unique, so obviously not related to anything out there).

If anything, you've just added more to the argument that things are OK the way they are.

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