risen3d licencing discussion

[Csonicgo]

yeah, I just deleted my copy too.

[sitters]

Phil1984 said:

Yeah i've deleted it too, I do think it stinks that Risen3d won't release it's source code. Every other major port seems to manage to do this, what do they have to hide?

I don't understand why some people think there is something to hide.

All the old sources are just from doomsday and are improved and rewritten to make things faster and add features.

That's all there is.

And Graham still find the sources a mesh, with all the rebuilding in the past.

And he only release the stuff, when he is happy with it, and this is not the case now.

[Graf Zahl]

sitters said:

All the old sources are just from doomsday and are improved and rewritten to make things faster and add features.

That's all there is.

This 'all' is actually a lot - and reason enough to demand a release. These are not just trivial changes to the code - they are possible complete rewrites of large sections.

[DaniJ]

What annoys us even more is the fact that we have not once received patches or even notification of bugs fixed by the Risen3D team. One would think that this is the very least they could do.

As Risen3D's developers seem completely unwilling to discuss this issue openly and have not even managed to answer any of our simple questions - we are left with no choice but to move on to the next stage.

[sitters]

I have some information :

Risen3D is distributed under the terms of the iD license as is Doomsday.
This license does not impose on the developer the obligation of releasing
the source. The fact that Doomsday was latterly changed to be distributed
under the GPL does not revoke the original terms and conditions of the iD
license and therefore imposes no change of obligation on the developers of
Risen3D. The Risen3D source will be released just the same, be patient.

[Csonicgo]

sitters said:

I have some information

Lazy (comparative lazier, superlative laziest)
1. Unwilling to do work or make an effort.

[DaniJ]

The Doomsday Engine ver 1.7.8 which Risen3D is based on was released under the GPL and NOT the ID DOOM license.

The plugins jDoom/jHeretic/jHexen were released under their original licenses.

[CODOR]

sitters said:
I don't understand why some people think there is something to hide.

If there's nothing to hide, then shouldn't the source be out already?

If you're the Risen3D team, and the first thing you do is take the Doomsday source and then refuse to cooperate with anyone, don't be surprised if people think you're up to no good...

[Quasar]

Yeah, and just to clarify something here, you *cannot* take a version of a port which was under GPL at the time of its writing and revert it back to the id non-commercial exploitation license. If that were the case, no DOOM port would be safe, and it isn't. The legality here is quite clear. Once all the authors of a work agree to its relicensing, any previous license is null and void when dealing with copies covered by the new license.

I'm not saying this is what has been done here because I have no idea. Just be sure it's not because if so, you're very wrong.

[sitters]

I am just an newbe in the team, so I dont know what happened in the past.

I don't know what Jaakko and Grahams agreements where in the past, when Risen3D was born.

[fraggle]

It seems to me that there are two separate issues here.

Firstly, deep is correct: you can't just combine Heretic/Hexen and GPL source. They are incompatible licenses, the end.

In fact, even if you separate the differently-licensed code into libraries or plugins, it's still not possible. There are companies that base their entire business model off this - Cygwin and Trolltech's Qt are examples of this. Qt is available under the GPL, so you can write free, GPL-licensed programs that link against Qt but if you want to write proprietary software that uses Qt, you have to buy a separate license.

The GPL is quite strict about combining with code under other licenses. You can't combine with any non-GPL compatible code without explicit permission from all the other contributors. This is why there's the Lesser GPL (LGPL) as well: this lets you make a library that non-free software can still use.

Be careful when using the Linux kernel as an example as it is a special case. Linux is under the GPL, but Linux comes with special permission that allows proprietary modules.

The second issue is that Risen3D is based on Doomsday. The Doomsday developers have only released *their* code under the GPL, so if the Risen3D authors are distributing it without releasing the source code, they are still violating the Doomsday license.

In the end, GPL violations are copyright violations and the important thing is whether the copyright owner actually cares.

In the case of Doomsday, the fact is that Id Software *probably* arent going to complain much what you link the code with as long as the source is there - especially Heretic/Hexen source.

In the case of Risen3D, the case is different. It's much more likely that the Doomsday authors object to Risen3D taking their source and creating their own binary-only port. Aside from the fact that it's an illegal violation of copyright, it's also incredibly disrespectful to the Doomsday authors, and to me that's the real bad part about Risen3D.

[Neil]

The reason you can't use the GPL-covered Qt with incompatibly-licensed software is that Qt is full of templates and inline functions that inevitably get linked into your application as a result of Qt's use.

TT representatives have expressly given that as a reason for their feeling comfortable with making the GPL-covered MS Windows release to begin with.

Whether this condition applies to the Doomsday situation, I can't say.

[fraggle]

sitters said:

I have some information :

Risen3D is distributed under the terms of the iD license as is Doomsday.
This license does not impose on the developer the obligation of releasing
the source. The fact that Doomsday was latterly changed to be distributed
under the GPL does not revoke the original terms and conditions of the iD
license and therefore imposes no change of obligation on the developers of
Risen3D. The Risen3D source will be released just the same, be patient.

If this is the case, then the Doomsday developers don't really have any right to demand the release of the Risen3D source, but I thought someone mentioned that Doomsday has always been GPL?

[fraggle]

Neil said:

The reason you can't use the GPL-covered Qt with incompatibly-licensed software is that Qt is full of templates and inline functions that inevitably get linked into your application as a result of Qt's use.

Not true. Read the GPL FAQ:

If a library is released under the GPL (not the LGPL), does that mean that any program which uses it has to be under the GPL?

Yes, because the program as it is actually run includes the library.

Another example is Cygwin, which uses exactly the same business model. The fact that the code is in a separate file doesn't give you any special rights.

[DaniJ]

From what I can tell Risen3Ds author's seem to be claiming that Doomsday was released under ID's license because it and the GPL license document is included in distributions and the source code packages.

Basically, they are suggesting that because each and every file was not stamped with boilerplates to indicate what code is GPL and what is IDs - that THEY then have the right to relicense ALL our code under ID's license. Which, no matter which way you look at it can't be done.

Doomsday's code has always been intended to be GPL and (most likely) will always be. Unfortunetly, skyjake historically was quite lax with applying license boilerplates and this is a technicality Risen3D is attempting to abuse even though the intensions are quite clear.

If you actually look at the code it is quite obvious what code is supposed to be GPL as it is basically EVERYTHING in the engine. The parts covered by DOOM's license is that of the plugin - jDoom.

In otherwords, everything with a DOOM boilerplate is ID's code. Everything without that is OUR code and it is intended to be GPL as proclaimed by the LICENSE document included in the source packages.

[Neil]

fraggle said:

Not true. Read the GPL FAQ:



Another example is Cygwin, which uses exactly the same business model. The fact that the code is in a separate file doesn't give you any special rights.

But if the plugin doesn't link to the GPL-covered library at all, it doesn't matter what the GPL FAQ says.

With Qt, that sort of thing is unavoidable because of the nature of C++ and the library. With Doomsday and its game plugins, it could be written to ensure that this isn't a problem.

[Csonicgo]

Let me get this straight.

The dev team of Doomsday has told the risen3d dev team to release their code, because they practically used the former team's code, but the latter team hides behind a layer of maybes , excuses, and laziness in releasing the code.


You do realise that being reluctant to release that code makes people suspicious of something in that code, right?

And not doing it even when the creator of some of that code asks you multiple times for it?

What in the world are you hiding?

[sitters]

So far I know there is nothing to hide.

And what I did say, the sources will be released in time.

But as long I am an part of this community ( only 1.5 year ) I see an offencive attitude against Risen3D.

I can imagine that the author of Risen3D react defensive.

I don't know what is happened in the past.
So far I know, hole the Risen3D team are nice fellows.

So I don't know where this flame war comes from.

Maybe it is time to cool down and ask this on a normal way instead demanding this.

And not make from an fly an elephant, like we say in holland.

[Phil1984]

sitters said:

I don't understand why some people think there is something to hide.

Oooooh i dunno, maybe by not releasing their souce code like every other major doom source port does?

Regardless of legality, taking the code of Doomsday and then not releasing your modified code is ethically bankrupt and incredibly rude which is why I choose never to download Risen3d until this is resolved.

I urge everyone else to do the same.

[DaniJ]

Re: http://risen3d.newdoom.com/lic.htm

In the spirit of cooperation I will say that I am interested in working to resolve the issue with the Risen3D team. However, the only way this will ever become a reality is if the Risen3D team will actually communicate with us directly. Currently we have no way of contacting Graham Jackson, the lead programmer on Risen3D.

Furthermore, in order to make such changes in Doomsday we will require access to the Risen3D sources. These do not have to made public but there is no way we can hope to intergrate Risen3D's changes unless the Doomsday team has access to the code.

Please note that the only reason the Doomsday team was originaly unwilling to incorporate the changes required for Boomsday was due to the fact that they did not consider jHeretic or jHexen at all. This was an inoperable situation as we the Doomsday team would have had to constantly rework their code because the Risen3D team were unwilling to figure the needs of jHeretic and jHexen into the equation.

[myk]

sitters said:
But as long I am an part of this community ( only 1.5 year ) I see an offencive attitude against Risen3D.

By then like 18 months had passed from when the Risen3D author claimed to base his engine off the Doomsday release with the GPL license on it, and now as much time again has elapsed.

One can understand your wish for things to be okay with Risen3D because you've made maps for it, but if you observe the events and are aware of what "free software" is and what has happened, you can't miss why people are being critical in the way they are.

[Yagisan]

my my - what an interesting development.

http://risen3d.newdoom.com/lic.htm
In response to recent criticism regarding the lack of release of the Risen3D source code the Risen3D team wish to make the following statement;

It hardly makes sense to talk about "theft" and "leeches" or make wild threats, especially on a public forum, given that the code dealing with analysis, 3D lines, slopes and scripting, for example, are all Risen3D specific and original. It makes even less sense if trying to win hearts and minds. These kind of ignorant comments are hardly conducive to fostering a spirit of co-operation.

Ah, but the base you build it on - is all Doomsday engine (you know - that really big GPL part that everything else depends on). We've tried o co-operate for a long time. You ignore us - now is time to give you a kick in the pants to get you to pay attention. It appears to be working if you need to put out press releases like this to say "I'm not a theif". The biggest theives always protest the loudest.

http://risen3d.newdoom.com/lic.htm
When Boomsday was being developed the Doomsday team were unwilling to make specific changes to the Doomsday engine required by Boomsday because of any negative impact this could have had in supporting Heretic and Hexen. This led to the death of Boomsday which, in turn, led to its resultant replacement with Risen3D (a stand alone port). As such little benefit to others is seen in releasing the source as it is highly unlikely that the Risen3D specific features are of any interest to other port writers. All other code used in Risen3D is already in the public domain.

None of our code that you have based this work on has ever been in the public domain. Releasing the source is not a choice - it is an obligation you accepted when you redistributed our GPL code in your project.

http://risen3d.newdoom.com/dd&r3d.htm
Since Jaakko has to deal with the four games mentioned then, following discussion, we came to the conclusion that two separate engines would be required. Although Jaakko was willing to consider and had suggested the possibility of a unified code base I had a problem with time in order to deal with this.

The divergence of Doomsday and Risen3D was not, therefore, intentional but was born out of the problems that would undoubtedly have arisen had an attempt been made to unify what are completely disparate requirements.

Oh no - I see a contradiction here. You now said we were both willing and unwilling to help you. Once again you have been caught in a lie.

http://risen3d.newdoom.com/lic.htm
The issue about licensing has no relevance. The Doom source was released by iD Software under the iD license which does not require a developer to release the source. This cannot be superceded by any other license as the original iD license is open ended; that is there are no clauses about time limits or variations being allowed. The fact that Doomsday was later released under the GPL does not, therefore, change the original licensing terms or conditions. In addition, whatever else may have been said, the Doomsday v1.7.8 source was shipped with the original iD license in doc\jdoom.

The Doom source was dual licensed by Id software. Any source that is purely Id Softwares copyright, you can do with as you please. We have accepted Ids GPL license only, so if the code has both Id copyright and our copyright , you may only use it under the terms of the GPL. I have already demonstrated that you have stolen code containing none of Id softwares copyright, and as such is under ther terms of the GNU GPL as shown here in the 1.7.7 release http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/deng/tags/release-1-7-7/doomsday/LICENSE?revision=33&view=markup which was shipped in the source tarball. In the root directory. Doomsday was in fact under the GPL before you forked. And another thing - you can not apply the license of your choice to code you do not own the copyright on. Which is exactly what you have one with you claim that is all Doom Source License

http://risen3d.newdoom.com/lic.htm
The main reason for not releasing the Risen3D source, however, is because it remains in beta. There is a possible solution to this. If the Doomsday team would be willing to design a fully working and tested variant of Doomsday, based on their latest release, that is Doom specific and has had the game code that currently resides in the jDoom dll moved into the Doomsday engine and with all Heretic and Hexen code together with all hooks and the attendant special code to deal with game dll's removed then we would be willing to update this to a Risen3D version and make the code changes generally available.

This, should it be done, is to be done with a spirit of co-operation and with any revised source, which will be sent directly to the Doomsday team, then being made generally available by the Doomsday team. We estimate that a Risen3D variant will take about six to nine months to complete, given the scale of the changes that would have to be made, following the receipt of a suitably modified, fully tested and working doom specific variant of Doomsday.

You have just asked us to quit work on our engine and work on Risen3D for you. Are you serious ? You've stolen our work, and refused to release source for the better part of 3 odd years, despite repeated attempts at contacting you - and now - you want us to make your engine for you ??? We really feel your contempt for us, and yet without us, you would not even have a "product".

http://risen3d.newdoom.com/lic.htm
Failing this then Risen3D will have to retain its beta status and the code will remain proprietary, given time constraints to deal with the issues surrounding making a release of the source, for the foreseeable future.

Risen3D Team

A correction. You will continue to steal our code, ignore our license conditions, not fulfill your obligations, continue spreading bullshit, and attempt to remove as much incriminating code as you can, before maybe making a source release before the next ice age.

[Graf Zahl]

Utterly pathetic. I'd see to close them down. That behavior is simply not acceptable.

[myk]

http://risen3d.newdoom.com/lic.htm
The issue about licensing has no relevance. The Doom source was released by iD Software under the iD license which does not require a developer to release the source. This cannot be superceded by any other license as the original iD license is open ended; that is there are no clauses about time limits or variations being allowed. The fact that Doomsday was later released under the GPL does not, therefore, change the original licensing terms or conditions. In addition, whatever else may have been said, the Doomsday v1.7.8 source was shipped with the original iD license in doc\jdoom.

Of the Doom source itself as is, and any offshoots, yes; as long as a Doom based source does not have any GPLed source in it, it is possible to assign it (choose for it) the DOOM license. Otherwise it is not, or is in any case illegal when it infringes the GPL in any way. Thus in order to release any testing betas of Risen3D the source of said betas must be provided when demanded.

Otherwise the Risen3D team are entitled to extract their original source from any Doomsday based source, apply it to a the Doom source or variation of it that does not contain Free sources, and publish binaries (and sources if they wish) of it, as they see fit.

[chilvence]

Although the legalese I don't care to know about, the picture is crystal clear. You can't just take something that is free and open to anyone (regardless of how explicitly stated or not that fact is) and build something selfishly in secret out of it. The nature of this place is that the authors of various ports work out in the open, allowing them to feed off each other s ideas from time to time. You are the odd one out, and you are using nothing but tiresome babble and vague technicalities to defend your position. You want to play, but you wont play by the unspoken rules.

[fraggle]

Yagisan said:

http://risen3d.newdoom.com/dd&r3d.htm

All this page demonstrates is an ignorance and lack of understanding of basic copyright law. Very sad.

To me, all this shows is their contempt for and lack of respect for other peoples' work which they are illegally using, and for all other programmers in the Doom community who might benefit from the Risen3D code. I don't use Windows so I don't have Risen3D installed; however, I would now join others in encouraging people not to install Risen3D, and if they do have it installed, please uninstall it.

Doomworld has a comprehensive list of alternative source ports to use. Off the top of my head I'd recommend ZDoomGL and GZDoom as source ports that have a similar feature set to Risen3D, but that are developed by people with proper respect for the Doom community and its' contributors.

[exp(x)]

Has anyone attempted to contact newdoom about having the project's hosting revoked?

[myk]

exp(x) said:
Has anyone attempted to contact newdoom about having the project's hosting revoked?

And I suppose that if Newdoom were to not mind about this and to not do anything in such a scenario the Doomsday team could also move out to a host that doesn't directly support leechers of their work.

[Yagisan]

exp(x) said:

Has anyone attempted to contact newdoom about having the project's hosting revoked?

We've tried be be nice and contact the Risen3D team first (that never worked - hence this thread at last). We tried not to assume deliberate malice in their behalf. It seems we were wrong. I'll wait the weekend out before talking to my fellow devs to see if we feel we need to do this.

Please remember - our goal has never been to shut Risen3D down, it is only to have them comply with the license. If they wish to fall on their sword, so be it.

[sitters]

Shit I just started an new map, Chillercastle2. :(