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LakiSoft

Source port idea!

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Gez said:

About GPL owning the code, the thing is that if you think you might want to use your code under a different license later on, including external contributions to it, then you should be proactive about it and dual-license it from the get-go. Or use a different license altogether, such as LGPL or BSD.

What, can't you relicense your own code? Do you really have to plan ahead? If you can't relicense derivatives of your own GPL code (with the original still being online), then Lyfe was right.

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printz said:

What, can't you relicense your own code? Do you really have to plan ahead? If you can't relicense derivatives of your own GPL code (with the original still being online), then Lyfe was right.


This thread is going in loops.

You can relicense only your own code. If you make a GPL program and accept third-party contributions to it, it's not just your own code anymore, so you can't relicense the whole program since you'd need the contributors' permissions. So either you go back to v1.0 with just your code (losing any added features and bugfixes you got from helpers in the meantime), or you track down everybody, which can be difficult after a while.

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DaniJ said:

Indeed, this above all else is the reason why I believe in the GPL (if not the motives of the FSF). It is the ultimate proverbial middle finger to the idiots who believe you can copyright an algorithm.

You are confusing copyright to the patents. You can't copyright an algorithm. You can only copyright your own implementation of it, but not prevent others from doing their own implementation. Patents in the other hand are different and allow you to do that, which I consider evil.

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Yeah, I used "copyright" where I meant obviously meant "patent". It was late and I was very tired...

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Lyfe said:

Relicense. Upgrade. Potatoe. Potato.


Words have meaning. Just because they have similar meanings in some context doesn't mean they're interchangeable in all contexts.

You can't relicense someone's code. You have no legal right to do so. That's that.

Lyfe said:

2. Well, if Linus would just license his code under a different license, maybe we'd have Linux under a BSD-style license. Oh wait, it's not his project, is it? It's owned by the GPL. Thanks for clearing that up.


He couldn't do that in a BSD project either. If someone contributed code under the BSD license, Linus would have no right to change the license of that code. This is how EE uses ZDoom code, the ZDoom code doesn't wake up one day and realize it's GPL, it's still under the ZDoom license.

If you're unfamiliar with EE, just replace it with "ZDoom" or "ZDaemon".

Lyfe said:

3. Yet, if it's only my code in the project, that defeats the purpose of having licensed it with the GPL, which is to get a LOT of code from a LOT of people to make the project better. Thus, the GPL owns the project. It might not own *my* original code. But it sure does own a copy of everyone's contributions (including mine) in the project. Unless everyone later agreed to 'recontribute' said code to the project under a different license.


Again words have meaning. The GPL is a license, it can't "own" anything, obviously. Furthermore there are many other reasons to license one's code under the GPL besides soliciting contributions. Licensing a project under the GPL guarantees that the project remains open source, for one.

Incidentally, that's why I think Linux outpaced the BSDs, the GPL guaranteed its openness. As Quasar elegantly stated, it became an asset of the human race.

Lyfe said:

4. And this is the root of the issue. There are many people out there who don't agree with the GPL. Neither do we like being told what to do. After all, you don't like me telling you that the issue can also be solved by noone using the GPL for their code, thus we should all use non-copyleft licenses.


Assuming that by non-copyleft licenses you mean BSD, BSD licenses give the option to close the source, so no, the "issue cannot be solved" completely. Again, how do you reuse code that is closed source?

Lyfe said:

5. Are you implying that a project like FreeBSD would somehow fold if the FreeBSD Foundation folded?


I don't know enough about the FreeBSD Foundation or FreeBSD development. I'm assuming this is regarding Mozilla and Firefox (I think you got the number system messed up haha, I hate Doomworld forums!!!!) but that was an argument for copyleft being a feature that people care about and that has real, significant impact on the world. Linux also had such an impact for precisely that reason. FreeBSD on the other hand, not so much.

Lyfe said:

XCode Stuff


The technical issue was caused by a licensing issue. Anti-GPL advocates say that fault lies with GCC, Pro-GPL advocates maintain the fault lies with Apple's refusal to open XCode. I don't assign "fault" at all, my issue with the anti-GPL advocates who slant the issue to try and prove how horrible the GPL is.

Lyfe said:

7. I'm sorry, I didn't know that all BSD-licensed code is closed-source. </sarcasm>


It can be, and that's the essential problem, especially for communities and downstream devs. Pro-BSD advocates in this thread have implied that closing source to sell software keeps people employed and the software industry running; aside from that that's the only argument in favor of closing the source I've heard. I tried to offer alternatives to that model, and I haven't heard any comments on them yet.

Lyfe said:

9. Example of something with competition? I mean, between competing GPL projects.


Xfce and Gnome.

Lyfe said:

Again, the code you write belongs to you (short of signing it over to someone else). But the project you create isn't always solely yours.


This is the case no matter what license you use. You always need developer permission to change a license. Look at Skulltag's relicensing for an example.

Lyfe said:

10. So, you don't think the fact that Novell was suing the bejesus out of everything BSD at the time when Linux became popular had anything to do with it? Please tell me at least that you are aware of the fact that every business in the world was fearful of anything related to BSD while the Novell lawsuits dragged on.


The SCO v. Novell lawsuit involving Linux intellectual property was a big deal too. This is kind of a side road to be honest, neither of us is gonna convince the other that license was or wasn't a big component of Linux' success.

Lyfe said:

11. I'm glad we were able to avoid these odd comments during our discussion. I think it's been an amazingly pleasant discussion between someone who believes the GPL should be everywhere, and someone who believes that the GPL should be dumped in favor of more BSD-style licenses.


Yes, I quite agree :) .

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I forgot what the source port idea was, if there has even been one in those 200+ posts.

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Maes said:

I forgot what the source port idea was, if there has even been one in those 200+ posts.

The idea was that DOOM ports ought to have support for more BUILD features and possibly even run BUILD engine games.

I took issue with it because of the licensing implications and the fact we've already run into issues because of its use in ZDoom. Didn't know it would touch off a 30 page argument but, that's how things tend to work in this community :P

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but meas lol (am I cool enough to use that? Please?), what if I like this derail more than the original topic?

I wish we'd still have the OP punctuating the debate with his tantrums, too.

...I'd make a terrible school teacher.

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Phml said:

I wish we'd still have the OP punctuating the debate with his tantrums, too.

...I'd make a terrible school teacher.

You definitely make a terrible poster, that's for sure!

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Phml said:

but meas lol (am I cool enough to use that? Please?


Of course u can you ugly cow, horse and reindeer lover, sing like mikeal jaxxon.

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Quasar said:

We need less of this not more of it.

Use of the asininely licensed BUILD code is a cop-out. Implement these features from scratch using your own intellect or don't bother. It is an unfair and unnecessary burden on the rest of us, who take licensing seriously.

Out of everything I could consider a dislike about ZDoom, the only thing I cannot forgive is its continued insistence on following this direction and the way that it flies in the face of the spirit of sharing that pervades the rest of the port development community.


I kinda agree with this. Ofcourse, I would like to see more of the 3D functionality of eDuke32 in (G)ZDoom, but copying pasting stuff into the sourcecode will just resort in more licensing clusterfuck.

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Shamash said:
I ask you people, who gives you right to control what I do with the code that I write? I think that you forget that even developers are people and what you're asking, is limiting our freedom to use our creativity and skills to do something awesome and then decide what happens to it.

All our creativity owes tons to others in many ways. How do these proprietary rules acknowledge that? Free software certainly does, quite generously. Now, there's use for private enterprise and restrictive appropriation, since it eases the accumulation of capital that can then be invested. It inevitably leaves people out in the productive and benefits chain, so if used, you need mechanisms to counter the imbalance it created in society. Today's world economy shows what happens when you don't. Loads of money ends up in few hands, which they'd rather speculate with rather than invest in the stagnant economy they left behind. It may clash with your conservative conception of business and economics, but taxation is a quite widespread and functional way to address this.

Should for example music artist be limited so that all his/her works must follow some rules that some group of people wants to enforce? If you answered not, then why should programmers be different?

Entertainment can also be regulated, but programming is more like building bridges, not just fun and games. That's why I noted taxing would be higher on more essential or socially necessary programming.

What I do believe is that programmer's work should be protected by the copyright system as any person's other artistic work and there is nobody in the world that has right to demand them to do things like not close the source.

You believe? You call others fanatic but your argument narrows down sheer faith based on a simplistic and individualistic conception of the ego or self. I addressed this earlier. You call me a GPL fanatic but my awareness of social issues and economics goes well beyond the GPL, which doesn't stop me from seeing how it plays an important role in that context.

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While I agree with myk that software development is more engineering than art (generally speaking), I think it's important to remind you that if you consider software more like a composition (song, story, etc.) then you have to apply copyright to it. As Quasar pointed out earlier, licensing is what allows you to do anything at all with the material. As many artists have discovered, you cannot just take someone else's work and slap your name on it.

Also it just occurred to me that software might be the only thing that both patents (because it's technology) and copyright (because source and binaries are fundamentally content) apply to. Can anyone think of anything else? That kind of sucks, haha.

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Ladna said:

Words have meaning. Just because they have similar meanings in some context doesn't mean they're interchangeable in all contexts.

GPL 'upgrade' clause. You're putting a version of the code into a new license. This seems to me to be relicensing. We'd be pointlessly arguing semantics, but GPL2, GPL3, future GPL4 (which seems inevitable) seem to me to be separate licenses. Call it a revision all you want, but there's a lot of variations between the licenses.

Ladna said:

Assuming that by non-copyleft licenses you mean BSD, BSD licenses give the option to close the source, so no, the "issue cannot be solved" completely. Again, how do you reuse code that is closed source?

This is kinda my problem with GPL supporters. It's the pessimist's solution keeping a derivative open. "Fuck your rights on any derivative, keep it open under *this* license."
Let's be honest, we're really not talking about the released sources. Just because I can take FreeBSD 9.1 and create a closed-source derivative of it, doesn't mean I'm necessarily affecting FreeBSD 9.1. It also doesn't mean I won't contribute back to the project.

Your argument has also proven to not be *the* scenario, just the worst-case scenario. It's also a worst-case scenario that relies on people to be at their absolute worst, as well.
Just because it gives you the option, does not mean it always happens. Just because the GPL doesn't give you the option, doesn't mean it doesn't show up in closed-sourced projects, especially software as a service projects. (Hell, for that matter, it shows up in closed-source projects that get released all over the place too. Why else would the FSF have a whole thing on it?)

Ladna said:

Incidentally, that's why I think Linux outpaced the BSDs, the GPL guaranteed its openness. As Quasar elegantly stated, it became an asset of the human race.

<snip>

The SCO v. Novell lawsuit involving Linux intellectual property was a big deal too. This is kind of a side road to be honest, neither of us is gonna convince the other that license was or wasn't a big component of Linux' success.

<snip>

I don't know enough about the FreeBSD Foundation or FreeBSD development. I'm assuming this is regarding Mozilla and Firefox (I think you got the number system messed up haha, I hate Doomworld forums!!!!) but that was an argument for copyleft being a feature that people care about and that has real, significant impact on the world. Linux also had such an impact for precisely that reason. FreeBSD on the other hand, not so much.

Yet you ignore the history surrounding both Linux & BSD, and the impact a major company like Novell (since they were BIG) in the early 90's would have had on open-source OSes at the time.
The SCO lawsuit was peanuts in its effect compared to what Novell did to the BSD communities in the early 90's. Most believed that SCO was mostly doing it out of a marketing campaign, a last-ditch effort to save a dying company.

To bring some perspective to company thought & support:
During the SCO lawsuit, many companies received a notice that the OS they use for their servers contains intellectual property of SCO. Some of them even paid on this fear, because they realized they already have an invested infrastructure. Most realized that SCO didn't have a leg to stand on, and waited patiently for them to fail.

Now, backtrack to the early 90's:
You have two open-source OS camps to choose from: Linux & BSD. BSD is under fire from Novell for potential intellectual property (or whatnot) and it's future as an OS (short of massive code replacement) is under question. Which one are you going to take as the basis of your investment? As a user who's just curious about which to try: are you going to 'waste your time' with an OS which has a questionable future?

Thus, I argue back: License had little to do with the success of Linux in the 90's, compared to BSD's very slow adoption rate due to the Novell lawsuit.

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Maes said:

I forgot what the source port idea was, if there has even been one in those 200+ posts.

Doesn't matter, the OP is banned now anyway.

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I wrote my code and if I slap license XYZ on it, you can either accept it and use my code or write your own code with license ABC. Some of you keep complaining:

A) "I DON'T WANT MY OWN CODE UNDER THE ??!" -- It is your code you license it how you want.

B) "DON'T LICENSE YOUR CODE UNDER THE ??!" -- It is not your code, why should you have any say?

C) "I DON'T WANT MY MODIFICATION UNDER THE |" -- Write a new program from scratch, you cannot take someone's code and change a few lines and think you can do whatever you want.

D) "USING SOMEONE ELSES CODE UNDER THE ??! LIMITS MY RIGHTS!" -- Licenses were made to give you rights normally denied, some just don't give it all. You can always invade an island and claim it.

fraggle said:

Doesn't matter, the OP is banned now anyway.


Now why/how did that happen?

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GhostlyDeath said:

B) "DON'T LICENSE YOUR CODE UNDER THE ??!" -- It is not your code, why should you have any say?

I dunno???

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GhostlyDeath said:

Now why/how did that happen?


Guysss, please stop with the lisense! this was nothing more than idea, that's all! -- The Ghost of LakiSoft

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GhostlyDeath said:

I wrote my code and if I slap license XYZ on it, you can either accept it and use my code or write your own code with license ABC. Some of you keep complaining:

A) "I DON'T WANT MY OWN CODE UNDER THE ??!" -- It is your code you license it how you want.

B) "DON'T LICENSE YOUR CODE UNDER THE ??!" -- It is not your code, why should you have any say?

C) "I DON'T WANT MY MODIFICATION UNDER THE |" -- Write a new program from scratch, you cannot take someone's code and change a few lines and think you can do whatever you want.

D) "USING SOMEONE ELSES CODE UNDER THE ??! LIMITS MY RIGHTS!" -- Licenses were made to give you rights normally denied, some just don't give it all. You can always invade an island and claim it.

Probably the most insightful thing I've seen you write so far. Well done.

Now why/how did that happen?

LakiSoft's demise is fully documented in Post Hell.

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GhostlyDeath said:

I wrote my code and if I slap license XYZ on it, you can either accept it and use my code or write your own code with license ABC. Some of you keep complaining:

A) "I DON'T WANT MY OWN CODE UNDER THE ??!" -- It is your code you license it how you want.

B) "DON'T LICENSE YOUR CODE UNDER THE ??!" -- It is not your code, why should you have any say?

C) "I DON'T WANT MY MODIFICATION UNDER THE |" -- Write a new program from scratch, you cannot take someone's code and change a few lines and think you can do whatever you want.

D) "USING SOMEONE ELSES CODE UNDER THE ??! LIMITS MY RIGHTS!" -- Licenses were made to give you rights normally denied, some just don't give it all. You can always invade an island and claim it.



Now why/how did that happen?


I agree 100% with you! No other than the programmer should have right to decide what happens to his code. If some person doesn't agree, then he should write himself his own code. He can't? His problem ;)

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Lyfe said:

Your argument has also proven to not be *the* scenario, just the worst-case scenario. It's also a worst-case scenario that relies on people to be at their absolute worst, as well.


To be honest, I felt the same way you do about the BSD licenses until I saw what closing ZDaemon's source did to the competitive Doom community. That's really the "real-world" basis for my argument. I think it's unacceptable that this is even possible, whether or not it requires people to be shitty or whatever is immaterial to me. In fact I think if a license allows openness to be defeated by shittiness, then the license itself is shitty.

We could probably argue the merits about whether ZDaemon's community is worse/smaller than it was pre-1.07, or whether closing the source had anything to do with it, but like the Linux/FreeBSD thing I don't think either of us would change the other's mind about it.

But along the Linux/FreeBSD lines, FreeBSD 2.0 (the first "unencumbered" version) was released 11/29/1994. Linux 1.0 was released 3/14/1994, but Linux 1.0 sucked balls. It wasn't until the 2.0 series it really took off, and that wasn't released until 6/9/1996. So really, I would say that just from a timing standpoint, the lawsuit couldn't have had an effect on competition for developer effort between Linux & FreeBSD. If anything, FreeBSD had a head start.

But you can go further and say that the lawsuit was a result of AT&T's shitty licensing agreement with Berkeley. If they had licensed their code to Berkeley under the GPL, that lawsuit never would have happened. You might argue back, "but then AT&T would never have invested resources into UNIX in the first place, and we wouldn't have had UNIX and therefore no BSD, Linux, GNU, and so on." I would say that's not true at all, Andrew Tenenbaum developed MINIX, Linus Torvalds developed Linux, Syllable Desktop exists, Genode OS Framework exists, etc. Programmers program, whether or not they get paid for it.

Also, GhostlyDeath won the thread. gg

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Ladna said:
To be honest, I felt the same way you do about the BSD licenses until I saw what closing ZDaemon's source did to the competitive Doom community. That's really the "real-world" basis for my argument. I think it's unacceptable that this is even possible, whether or not it requires people to be shitty or whatever is immaterial to me. In fact I think if a license allows openness to be defeated by shittiness, then the license itself is shitty.

How is this a problem? If it's their code, they have right to do whatever they wish with it, like GhostlyDeath explained well. Randy Heit released his code under BSD license, not GPL or other copyleft license which tells me that he doesn't really care about it. People who don't have code in the project are in no position to complain about the license. As GhostlyDeath said, if you don't like the license, write your own :) People could have started own branch from the latest Open Source release.

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Ladna said:

To be honest, I felt the same way you do about the BSD licenses until I saw what closing ZDaemon's source did to the competitive Doom community. That's really the "real-world" basis for my argument.

You have a very small sample for a real-world basis. Plus, I don't think it was the closing of the source that caused - well, whatever you claim it caused - so much as the extreme reaction to that process. After all, if it was the closing of the source, where's all the ZDaemon 1.06 forks? It seems to me, that the only thing the GPL would have done would have been to chase away the existing developers on the project (who were getting tired of the issues associated with having all the sources in the wild), leaving the project to die.

Ladna said:

I think it's unacceptable that this is even possible, whether or not it requires people to be shitty or whatever is immaterial to me. In fact I think if a license allows openness to be defeated by shittiness, then the license itself is shitty.

So, since we're allowed to do something 'bad' with it....
It seems silly to me to try and enforce the morality of code-sharing (something which isn't detrimental to another person's health & well-being) by legal document. Like you said later in your post, programmers will write software, one way or another. Not all of them will share.

Ladna said:

We could probably argue the merits about whether ZDaemon's community is worse/smaller than it was pre-1.07, or whether closing the source had anything to do with it

We can't. I won't argue this point with you, because quite frankly - regardless of what the truth is - I enjoy it more. Apparently I long to have more disagreements, hence me coming on doomworld to continue a war. Obviously, the only definition of a truce to said war is acknowledging that the other party simply won't bend, and call it at that.

Ladna said:

But along the Linux/FreeBSD lines, FreeBSD 2.0 (the first "unencumbered" version) was released 11/29/1994. Linux 1.0 was released 3/14/1994, but Linux 1.0 sucked balls. It wasn't until the 2.0 series it really took off, and that wasn't released until 6/9/1996. So really, I would say that just from a timing standpoint, the lawsuit couldn't have had an effect on competition for developer effort between Linux & FreeBSD. If anything, FreeBSD had a head start.

But you can go further and say that the lawsuit was a result of AT&T's shitty licensing agreement with Berkeley. If they had licensed their code to Berkeley under the GPL, that lawsuit never would have happened. You might argue back, "but then AT&T would never have invested resources into UNIX in the first place, and we wouldn't have had UNIX and therefore no BSD, Linux, GNU, and so on." I would say that's not true at all, Andrew Tenenbaum developed MINIX, Linus Torvalds developed Linux, Syllable Desktop exists, Genode OS Framework exists, etc. Programmers program, whether or not they get paid for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux - See paragraph 3. Even wikipedia cites the lawsuit (apparently from AT&T, not Novell - sorry) as stymieing BSD, with sources. Yet somehow you overlook this in favor of your "the license caused it" argument. People never forget the bad things. A lawsuit against an OS is a bad thing. It takes a long time to recover from that.
Additionally, the GPL wouldn't protect against a lawsuit, much like it had not protected against SCO's lawsuit. The shit still hits the fan.
You'd have better luck attributing Linux's success on that it written from the ground-up as an open-source OS. Which, after the debacle with AT&T and BSD, was appealing to many people.
Also see, chronology.

Really though, I never would have brought AT&T's work on UNIX into the mix, but since you did....
http://www.levenez.com/unix/
Granted, we might still have Tenenbaum, Torvalds, etc, develop OSs, but they had something to mimic. In the world we live in, this was UNIX.
Could you imagine Linux if it were based off MS-DOS?

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Shamash said:

I agree 100% with you! No other than the programmer should have right to decide what happens to his code. If some person doesn't agree, then he should write himself his own code. He can't? His problem ;)


Then why were there petitions for Raven Software (among others, but Raven is the most relevant for Doomworld) to open the source from their old games? Why were the Skulltag guys harassed to open their source every time they wandered here?

I'm being a devil's advocate here because personally I am in favor of open source and I'm glad the Raven code got GPLed and Skulltag (and its successor) became open-sourced once and for all; but if something has enough of a community, and the license is deemed inconvenient, pressures are going to be exerted so as to get license changes.

Outside of Doom, a famous example would be the Qt library, back in the TrollTech days. Under pressure, it was relicensed first under a custom license (QPL), then dual-licensed with GPL v2, then triple licensed with GPL v3 too (with a long list of exceptions allowing to mix with code under various other FOSS licenses that might not otherwise be compatible with the GPL), and finally quadruple-licensed with the LGPL v2.1.

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Though let's call apples apples, and oranges oranges.

Taking somebody's code and just using it however you wish despite the licensing terms it was offered under is illegal and, to some degree, immoral.

Asking someone who has already gone so far as to release code to the public, but has done so under terms that cause obstruction and inconvenience, to change their mind, and respecting the outcome of that decision, is something entirely different.

Raven could have said "fuck off" in which case we'd still be in the same situation we were when we started. To be properly GPL, Heretic and Hexen would have to be implemented completely from scratch or through clean-room reverse engineering (much cleaner than the process we used for Choco Strife, even). It wouldn't have given me free reign to just say "well I'm going to use it anyway."

Maybe if the entirety of the ZDoom, Zandronum, etc. communities cared, they could get Ken to write off at least the portions of his code that are used in that source base to be used as BSD, or GPL, or whatever you wish. Anything that doesn't carry the no-commercial-use clause and is thus GPL-compatible would make me perfectly happy.

The fact is, those communities do not care and have no incentive to do so, because these projects absorb code like the Cookie Monster eats cookies. That two of the licenses included in its menagerie-of-licenses (which is so expansive it warrants its own zip file) don't even allow free distribution of code speaks volumes to this end. Those terms get hand-waved because the rest of the licenses they belong to ostensibly allow the core code to remain BSD, which in turn ostensibly allows integration with the BUILD-licensed code. Really, it's a house of cards that, if it were actually legally challenged somehow, would certainly prove invalid.

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Lyfe said:

You have a very small sample for a real-world basis. Plus, I don't think it was the closing of the source that caused - well, whatever you claim it caused - so much as the extreme reaction to that process.


Alright, we can call it a "doom-world basis". Let's frame it that way. We all know it was more than just "closing the source" that caused drama. It was whom closed the source, was the start of the drama.

Lyfe said:

After all, if it was the closing of the source, where's all the ZDaemon 1.06 forks?

Who cares?
Since most C/S doom ports are ZDoom-based (maybe all of them?) ZDaemon really isn't all that special.

Lyfe said:

It seems to me, that the only thing the GPL would have done would have been to chase away the existing developers on the project (who were getting tired of the issues associated with having all the sources in the wild), leaving the project to die.


And would you believe that "those issues" were probably a direct result of how the staff were acting? Of course not. Were you asleep when Skulltag was closed source, too?

Lyfe said:

So, since we're allowed to do something 'bad' with it....

Like use the crutch of closed source to hype features which no one can benefit? This would only make sense if ZDaemon had a price tag. Otherwise, it's just wankery.

Lyfe said:

It seems silly to me to try and enforce the morality of code-sharing (something which isn't detrimental to another person's health & well-being) by legal document.


That's not the primary purpose of the GPL. But keep trying. You might want to consult Deep's lawyers since it's so difficult.

Lyfe said:

Like you said later in your post, programmers will write software, one way or another. Not all of them will share.


It's one thing to start a software project with your own set terms, but it's another thing entirely to do a complete bit-flip after years of development.

Lyfe said:

We can't. I won't argue this point with you, because quite frankly - regardless of what the truth is - I enjoy it more. Apparently I long to have more disagreements, hence me coming on doomworld to continue a war. Obviously, the only definition of a truce to said war is acknowledging that the other party simply won't bend, and call it at that.


And there's the Belly-feel.

Lyfe said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux - See paragraph 3. Even wikipedia cites the lawsuit (apparently from AT&T, not Novell - sorry) as stymieing BSD, with sources. Yet somehow you overlook this in favor of your "the license caused it" argument. People never forget the bad things. A lawsuit against an OS is a bad thing. It takes a long time to recover from that.
Additionally, the GPL wouldn't protect against a lawsuit, much like it had not protected against SCO's lawsuit. The shit still hits the fan.
You'd have better luck attributing Linux's success on that it written from the ground-up as an open-source OS. Which, after the debacle with AT&T and BSD, was appealing to many people.
Also see, chronology.

Really though, I never would have brought AT&T's work on UNIX into the mix, but since you did....
http://www.levenez.com/unix/
Granted, we might still have Tenenbaum, Torvalds, etc, develop OSs, but they had something to mimic. In the world we live in, this was UNIX.
Could you imagine Linux if it were based off MS-DOS?


What happened to SCO and AT&T? One Chapter 7'd and the other was trust-busted. Kenneth Brown tried to bust Linux and could not do it. Microsoft tried to kill it but they too were busted by the Halloween Documents.

Your argument here would be great if Linux had died. But it didn't. It survived legal scrutiny, and so did the GPL. You have any other examples of the GPL being defeated(Hint: the number rhymes with "zero")?

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Gez said:

Then why were there petitions for Raven Software (among others, but Raven is the most relevant for Doomworld) to open the source from their old games? Why were the Skulltag guys harassed to open their source every time they wandered here?

I'm being a devil's advocate here because personally I am in favor of open source and I'm glad the Raven code got GPLed and Skulltag (and its successor) became open-sourced once and for all; but if something has enough of a community, and the license is deemed inconvenient, pressures are going to be exerted so as to get license changes.

Outside of Doom, a famous example would be the Qt library, back in the TrollTech days. Under pressure, it was relicensed first under a custom license (QPL), then dual-licensed with GPL v2, then triple licensed with GPL v3 too (with a long list of exceptions allowing to mix with code under various other FOSS licenses that might not otherwise be compatible with the GPL), and finally quadruple-licensed with the LGPL v2.1.

I didn't say that Open Source is bad or that I'm against it. What I said was that the developers should have the freedom to decide what happens to their code (even the right to decide not to open source it). If some developer decides to release source on public, it's definitely good thing. What I was meaning was that if a developer decides to go with closed source, it's his decision and there is no reason to mark him as the ultimate evil (unless he did something illegal, like took your code without permission).

Quasar said:

Maybe if the entirety of the ZDoom, Zandronum, etc. communities cared, they could get Ken to write off at least the portions of his code that are used in that source base to be used as BSD, or GPL, or whatever you wish. Anything that doesn't carry the no-commercial-use clause and is thus GPL-compatible would make me perfectly happy.

Just out of curiosity, about what parts of the BUILD's source code are you interested?

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Shamash said:

Just out of curiosity, about what parts of the BUILD's source code are you interested?

Voxel loading, rendering, and clipping.

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@Csonicgo:
Thanks for replying. Instead of offering a rebuttal or insightful commentary, you've simply been abusive.

I believe you're making bad inferences. Not to mention, being wrong on a few points. Or perhaps just arguing different points than that which I'm arguing.

I do have two questions (since you had not elaborated, and I haven't cared to do the research):
- who is Deep, and why are his/her lawyers relevant to a discussion about the GPL's enforcement of open-source code (including derivatives), as well as the moral standpoint that open-source code is the right way to do things?
- What the hell are you concluding in your last point? Please clarify. I cannot even make the logic jump from what I said to what you think I said to justify what your comment means. I'm arguing that there's more to Linux's success than just a license. And dragging in a response to Ladna that without AT&T's contributions of UNIX as a published (not necessarily source) OS, that Linux would be a very different product (expecting the likelyhood of that it would have been written, since I believe it still would have).

You come across as an angry person wishing to sew the demise of ZDaemon, all because we banned a few people (ok, a lot of people) and won't let you tell us how to run a source port. So, prove me wrong. Calm down, make a valid argument, and join what has been a pretty decent discussion (at least in terms of any discussion I've had with Ladna) about licensing. Or finding/learning history of Linux/BSD/UNIX/etc. Although, you're coming in a bit late, since we're slowly coming to an agreement to disagree on why the GPL is good/bad versus other open-source licenses. (Which should not be a surprise to anyone here, especially with my first comment in the thread.)

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