PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: lemontea on March 12, 2005, 04:20:44 pm
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[size=18]Updates[/size]
May all people please read the summary at the second page (or click here (http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?boardid=13&threadid=15423&page=2#40)) before posting, and please stay on topic and be respectful of others, thanks.
Hello to all,
I\'m writing to express my opinion on the licensing of this game. Don\'t get me wrong, I\'m not saying the license is not good, just that I want to say something after reading some posts that someone can\'t use the work of planeshift because of the restriction of the license. Read on.
Firstly, the points given in the license page can be summarized as below:
1)In open source development model, it\'s important to group human resources together so they can concentrate on smaller scope and increase chance of success overall. In other words, avoid \"divide and conquer\" at all cost.
2)It\'s vital to have quality over quantity, and being unique to standout. Avoid \"reinventing the wheel\" and \"mass and messy\", also, protect the project from being copied/cloned.
3)Many artists want their works to be respected and used as they wish only. Hence GPL will drive some of them away.
4)Similar to point 3, if retaining their full right over their work, they may retreat their work/refuse to co-operate, which will spell doom for the project.
Note that in both 3 and 4, threats mentioned in 1 and 2 take effect.
5)Hence the solution: credits belongs to the author, and the PS team will have full right of the work. The public and the author in this case, will have no rights other than fair/personnal use.
See the source of problem? Contradiction appears on what level of rights should the artist and public be given. Too much on artist and it may \"abuse\" his work, too much on public and the public may steal the work;too little on artist may drive them away, too little on public may damage their image of open source project.
I think the license now is leaning on the low side for both the author and the public, can we find the balancing point? Well, after some searching, I found the license below even closer to the ideology:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling/1.0/
The title and original use of it may sound strange, but its idea of \"awarding people that creatively reuse the work\" is brillant:
a)For the public, people that want to steal the work wont success while people that get inspiration from the work can improve and use the work in such a way that didn\'t destory the uniqueness of the original work, win-win situation.
b)For the artist, they know that their credit will be reserved, their work will be improved upon, and their work will not be stolen. In the case of author submitting this work to many project, this will not happen because the project (public) can\'t reuse the work unmodified.
Of course, mass switch of licensing is a big task, and I hereby suggest giving this license or a similar, trailor-made one, as a third option alongside the first 2. Using this license, while protecting point 1 and 2, encourage innovation, which is beneficial for both this project and the public. Just my 2 cents, thanks.
PS: Actually, even with the license we have now, fair-use is not disallowed. In this case, just giving it to your friend should be a fair use as long as the number is not too large and that they don\'t use the music outside of personnal use.
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Those are some interesting points. Are you aware that there is no license that applies to the Planeshift project in its entirety? Program source code is covered by the GNU General Public License, or GPL. Details on the GPL are found here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL
The art ( music, soundeffects, world maps, character models, icons, menu background images, splash screen and related works ) are covered under a very different license to the source code. This is the PlaneShift License v1.0 and is found here:
http://www.planeshift.it/pslicense.html
The proprietry nature of the art license does not really impact greatly on the Freedom of the overall project, in my opinion. If I wanted to, I ( or anyone else ) could start my own competing project using the Planeshift source code, with my own character models, world maps, scenery, music and so on, hosted on my own server. I could then issue a client download that people use to connect to my server, in the same way the current planeshift client connects to the fragnetics server. Any source code additions I have made would be available to the Planeshift team under the GPL, and vice versa - I could incorporate any new code that they have written into my game.
The Planeshift team are the copyright holder of the art files, they could release all art under the GPL tomorrow if they desired. Similarly, they could choose to relicense all source code under some proprietry license that forbids modification and/or distribution. This would not impact on the Freedom of the most recent GPL licensed planeshift code release though, it would still be available for use and development by everyone under the GPL terms. Hence the Freedom of the project cannot be taken away by anyone. This is a good thing!
What part of this do you think will cause problems? I dont see it being an issue for coders or artists. Any artist that doesnt want to contribute art under the Planeshift License can start their own project and contribute art under whatever license they please. I certainly dont see the GPL as being a problem that \'drives artists away\', it is not relevant to artists as the art is not covered by the GPL.
Re: Fair Use, the courts in the US at least have not accepted this as a valid reason to distribute copyrighted works in recent years, despite that its a fundamental part of copyright law. This issue is a huge problem, but is not really something specific to Planeshift and I dont think discussing it here would really achieve anything.
I dont presume to speak on the behalf of the Planeshift team. I\'d like to hear their opinions too.
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Originally posted by Tharizdun
Those are some interesting points. Are you aware that there is no license that applies to the Planeshift project in its entirety? ......(cut)
http://www.planeshift.it/pslicense.html
Yes, I know about the dual licenses nature of this project, just that the source code part is not my major concern- the license of the source code is ok.
Originally posted by Tharizdun
The proprietry nature of the art license does not really impact greatly on the Freedom of the overall project, in my opinion. If I wanted to......(cut)
I could incorporate any new code that they have written into my game.
While source code can be reused in some degrees in another similar project, it\'s impossible to copy the whole source code and clone this project, anyway, I can\'t see any relavent point here, although this point is quite interesting.
Originally posted by Tharizdun
The Planeshift team are the copyright holder of the art files, they could release all art under the GPL tomorrow if they desired. ......(cut)
...cannot be taken away by anyone. This is a good thing!
The key problem is that if the PS core team broke up, or they decided to terminate this project, then no one, I say no one, except the PS team, will be able to continue the project unless people redo all the artwork, websites, etc. Which is highly troublesome. Also, if someone in public find a minor problem with the artwork, for example, a missing vertexin 3d model, they will have to report it to the PS team. See it? Every action related to the artwork must first go through the approval of the PS team.
Originally posted by Tharizdun
What part of this do you think will cause problems?......(cut)
...... I certainly dont see the GPL as being a problem that \'drives artists away\', it is not relevant to artists as the art is not covered by the GPL.
If, suppose GPL is used for the artist, that means the public has freedom on using/improving it, but some artist do not want to see their artwork used everywhere, you know?
Originally posted by Tharizdun
Re: Fair Use, the courts in the US at least have not accepted this as a valid reason to distribute copyrighted works in recent years, despite that its a fundamental part of copyright law. This issue is a huge problem, but is not really something specific to Planeshift and I dont think discussing it here would really achieve anything.
I dont presume to speak on the behalf of the Planeshift team. I\'d like to hear their opinions too.
Oh, I see. I would be glad to be able to hear from the PS team too.
Note: I actually try to focus this thread on the art license only , sorry.
May be I should have stated my point more percisely:
The proprietry nature of the license, while protecting the project itself, is in some sense, overprotective, such that the freedom of the public on the artwork is lowered. The spirit of open source is that the public has the freedom to improve it. Concentrating on the word improve, applying to artwork, there are a few types of improvment possible:
Technical:Fix a missing vertex in 3d model, spelling mistakes in website, etc.
Content: Change some lighting in the 3d model, add detail to the texture, etc.
Currently, any improvement suggested must go through the approval of the PS team, surely they can accept most technical improvement, but there may be some arguement on the content one. If the PS team deny a particular content improvement, then there\'s nothing people can do.
Using the sampling license, that award innovation, although minor content improvement are still not covered, but at least, major content improvement are allowed without the need of permission from PS team.
As a conclusion, my major worry is that the license on artwork currently give all rights to the PS team, and over-concentration of power is not good.
Note: Afterall, I think that at least the redistribute restriction should be lessened, as long as credit is retained, and the work is distributed as a whole.
Also, I think the process of reporting possible improvment of the artwork, website, etc, should be made easier for the public. For example, set up a page that public can give feedback on the website, a page that public can pinpiont where a vertex is missing, etc.
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Currently, any improvement suggested must go through the approval of the PS team, surely they can accept most technical improvement, but there may be some arguement on the content one. If the PS team deny a particular content improvement, then there\'s nothing people can do.
And they should be able to? This is our hobby, not everyone else\'s. :) Personally I\'m grateful that PS is protected the way it is.
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Originally posted by Moogie
Currently, any improvement suggested must go through the approval of the PS team, surely they can accept most technical improvement, but there may be some arguement on the content one. If the PS team deny a particular content improvement, then there\'s nothing people can do.
And they should be able to? This is our hobby, not everyone else\'s. :) Personally I\'m grateful that PS is protected the way it is.
Able to what? Why do you think the current protect level of the license is good? I would like to have your points clarified more clearly.
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\"If the PS team deny a particular content improvement, then there\'s nothing people can do.\"
And I said, \"Should they be able to?\"
If the content improvement being suggested by people is so obviously needed, we arn\'t going to just ignore it for some odd unaccountable reason and let people suffer. If it\'s denied, it\'s denied for a reason- most likely that it doesn\'t fit in Talad\'s grand schemes for PS.
But since this is Talad\'s baby, and our hobby, it\'s not up to anyone else what we do or don\'t put in the game. It\'s simple as that, really.
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Moogie, the online gaming preacher
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Originally posted by Moogie
\"If the PS team deny a particular content improvement, then there\'s nothing people can do.\"
And I said, \"Should they be able to?\"
If the content improvement being suggested by people is so obviously needed, we arn\'t going to just ignore it for some odd unaccountable reason and let people suffer. If it\'s denied, it\'s denied for a reason- most likely that it doesn\'t fit in Talad\'s grand schemes for PS.
But since this is Talad\'s baby, and our hobby, it\'s not up to anyone else what we do or don\'t put in the game. It\'s simple as that, really.
To sum up the previous points:
-Using a restrictive license, the core team has final right on content improvement.
-Because the project started as personnal interest, there will be one absolute grand plan of the content that no one(except the author himself, of course) can change.
@Moogie: If what you said is true, then unfortunately I have to tell you that this project shows characteristic of a \"closed development model\". In open development model, the project is open to idea from any people, hence the name of \"open source\" ; as a contrast, in closed development model, the project resists ideas from outside.
If you\'re picky, you may see that there\'s no absolute \"open\" or \"closed\" development, rather, in most case it\'s a mixture of two, but in this case, it is somewhat more closed development.
Please note that I do not mean to say closed development model is bad: in fact, in the case of a game, it\'s sometimes better to have closed development model for better consistancy. (http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/games.html)
What I demand now, is that if the project is not 100% open source, then you STATE it clearly on the website, directly on the about page, without the user having to bother to look at the license page to actually find out what part of the project is open source, what is not.
But in the end, this hasn\'t been the main point of the discussion. What I want to discuss, is that while the license now protect the project itself, it is somewhat unfair to the public: sacrificing the right of the public to protect itself, it is a classical example of being selfish. I\'m discussing the possibility of while protecting the project, we also give some rights to the public, namely, if the public get inspiration from the art and created some derivated work, they\'re allowed to use it. In this way creativity, especially among the open source gaming community, is encouraged. What opinion do the core team have on this? I\'m looking forward to recieve a reply.
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Let me see if I get this right.
You think that Open-Source Game automatically means that all the people on the dev team will automatically insert every useless patch any worthless idiot sends in? Well, I\'m sorry. But you\'re wrong.
You can look at the code as much as you want - it\'s Open-Source.
You can take the code (3D model, levels, SQL data, informations, quests, dialogues, (etc.) isn\'t code. It\'s art, in some way or another.), modify it, send in patches - it\'s Open-Source.
You can\'t whine if your patch is made with illegally bad C++ skills, and doesn\'t fit in with the rest of the code - what gets put into the game is not your decision.
So ultimately, your only two decisions are a) accept that there are people creating the game, and that you nowhere on the website will find a place that says you can submit anything you want, AND expect it to be patched in, simply because your definition of Open-Source is way wrong or b) get out.
Those are the two options we always give people here, because we\'re nice and we\'re tired of acting like dictionaries for others. The license is there to protect the game from being raped and abused by mindless twits with greasy hands, who would most likely - if they could - steal the game and sell it as their own project. That\'s why there is a license. So those people just have to go find some other place to lurk for potential scams.
Now, if you want a game where anything that anyone submits get used, you\'re looking for an Open Development game, aka Bazaar style development game. Not an Open-Source. Open-Source simply means you can download the game code, get inspired, learn or maybe use parts of it for your own game, but you can\'t simply add to the game because you want to. There are just too many idiots in the world for anything like that to work. :)
As for this:
if the public get inspiration from the art and created some derivated work, they\'re allowed to use it. In this way creativity, especially among the open source gaming community, is encouraged. What opinion do the core team have on this? I\'m looking forward to recieve a reply.
I would like to quote this from the License:
(Quote 1) --
2. You may not copy, modify, publish, transmit, sell, participate in the transfer or sale or reproduce, create Derivative Works from, distribute, perform, display or in any way exploit any of the Material released under this License unless expressly permitted by the PlaneShift Team.
(Quote 2) --
? The \"Material\", below, refers to any such material or work, and a \"work based on the Material\" means either the Material or any Derivative Work under copyright law.
? \"Derivative Work\" shall mean a work containing the Material or a portion of it, such as a revision, modification, enhancement, adaptation, translation (including compilation or recompilation by computer), abridgement, condensation, expansion, or any other form in which such preexisting works may be recast, transformed, or adapted, and that, if prepared without authorization of the owner of the copyright in such preexisting work, would constitute a copyright infringement.
By downloading any PlaneShift related material from the website (client, source, etc.), you automatically agree to this, as well as the rest of the license.
I hope that answered your question about if it\'s wise to have a license
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Originally posted by lemontea
Originally posted by Tharizdun
The proprietry nature of the art license does not really impact greatly on the Freedom of the overall project, in my opinion. If I wanted to......(cut)
I could incorporate any new code that they have written into my game.
While source code can be reused in some degrees in another similar project, it\'s impossible to copy the whole source code and clone this project, anyway, I can\'t see any relavent point here, although this point is quite interesting.
Degrees? The engine code is made flexiable just because want other projects to be able to use the code to other kind of games. I guess that 80-90% is useable in perhaps FPS with additional features?
Also, if you don\'t believe me search on LessShift
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I would like to give my two cents for this interesting conversation.
I really don\'t think that being aggressive is a way for discussing, also because I didn\'t see any malicious intentions in the purpose of this thread.
I am grateful that PS code is released under GPL license, since I am using it for my own project (university related). Modifying the code it is possible, but it is not an instantaneous process, and, due to its status, it is necessary to modify the code (and it is not enough to just modify the settings in some .xml file). But it is really a little compare to have to start to do something similar from the scratch.
If the database (I really don\'t consider a database art ;-) ) can be \"protected\" in certain aspects (quest solutions, private data), I have found often cryptic some table, and the absence of an exhaustive documentation forced me to hunt the poor members of PS team that have the patience to tolerate me.
Focusing on the art: well, I agree partially with the actual license.
I personally think that is correct to avoid to see billions of clone of PS and that the originality of the work should be protected, but it is also true that if one day the project will end the art will be lost, and more, if you don\'t want to partecipate anymore in the project then you are basically giving it away (and not always everybody leaves a team \"happily\"). It is true that when you agree to become a member of the team you know what you can do and what you cannot, if you don\'t want, then you don\'t become a member of the team.
Personally, I would never agree with such terms, but it is a personal choice and if there is people that like to do like this, well, better for Planeshift ;-).
It is true that you have to go through PS team for the art (and also for the code), and this kills the \"open source\" atmosphere, but the project is huge and pretty peculiar and probably a different approach (of giving more possibilities to the public) would make some harm.
If I would do a project like PS, I would give the rights to the authors of the art, and partially to the team.
PS as a game is not open source. The game engine is.
Ary
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The basic idea is that PlaneShift is a \'data driven\' game. So things like the models, the database rules, the items etc are all data that is loaded by the engine. When you think about it like this the licenesing makes more sense. Everybody can have their own \'data sets\'. In our case we choose to protect our data set to make sure we remain a unique data set ( and therefore a unique game ). The engine just loads different data sets and anybody can use the engine. I will help as much as I can for anybody that is using the engine to load different data sets. ( Nudge AryHann :) ).
PlaneShift is a project of the Atomic Blue organization and as such even if everybody left the project Atomic Blue still has the ownership and copyrights. So if ( god forbid ) all of us decided to stop working on PS ( mass insanity? ) then we could just simply assign a new set of directors for Atomic Blue and work can continue.
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the \"open source\" part of the game is the source and code, so anyone can modify and use the core for anything... the images, music, etc. are not open source and are owned by Atomic Blue, now.. just cause its an open source project doesnt mean everything is open for the public to take and use, modifying a model or skin already made is against the PS liscense... so basically your gripe about the artwork, doesnt fall under the open sourceness of the game...
EDIT: spelling/grammitical :P
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Sorry for my late response, I response for a good reason(see the new point at the bottom of the page)
@Gronomist/(name changed to Kiva?) : Unfortunately, you didn\'t get a single point at all.
Your counter-arguement:
1)I misunderstood completely the definition of open-source.
2) (a)Open source does NOT mean anyone can modify it if the modification is badly made.
(b)Open source means that you learn from the code.
(c)Bazaar style development means any modification by anyone will be accepted.
3)The license are here to prevent someone from stealing it and claiming credit.
4)The current license forbids derivative work, so what I said is wrong.
My actual point:
2) (a)I do NOT said that any idea will be accepted, just that people will at least hear the idea and determine if it is good enough. Also note that I do mentioned the relative nature of open and close development.
(i)Even open source does use minimum closed development model to organize the project, without that, it\'s project without leader, without organisation.
(ii)A good open source project should balance between organisation and causalness.
(b)Yes, learning from the community is one of the key feature of open source community.
(c)No, you\'re wrong on this one. Even with Bazaar style development, as I\'ve stated many times perviously, there ARE some organisation to accepting contribution. I suggest you to read \"The Cathedral and the Bazaar\"
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
3)Of course I know the purpose of license, just that I suggest slight change of it to lessen unneeded restriction.
4)Do you noticed you only partially quoted my words? If you bother to read more carefully, you should have noticed the line before it:
\"I\'m discussing the possibility of while protecting the project, we also give some rights to the public, ...(your quoting)\"
This is an imaginary conditional sentence structure in disguise, do you know? That is, what I said is IF blah blah blah...
@Androgos: When I say clone I mean exact copy with maybe the credit claimed over(in other words, work theif)
Off topic: actually this point is out of topic, but anyway, what I wanted to say is that the power of GPL, namely, the ease of cloning it and start a fork, is only possible when it is FULLY open source. With part of it closed source, you have to redo all artwork, which is costy.
Don\'t mind, afterall, this point is irrelavent, and the code being flexible is a good thing in itself.
@acraig: The atomic blue thing is relatively new(appear after my earlier posts, some those posts don\'t cover them), and I would like to state my viewpoint here:
Even in this case the project can continue, it would be a great strip down of the power, and worse is when you failed to find any new successor willing to take up the job, which again spell doom and the end to the project.
@Harkin: I knew that already, in fact, I stated that I want to focus on the art license(a.k.a. PS license), since I know the source code is already in GPL, the problem is just the current license for game content is too restrictive.
After some misunderstanding of the discussion topic I think now is the right time to do a summary before I state my new point.
Summary:
My intention is to focus on the game content license only , which I think is too restrictive on that it protect creativity , but prohibit other\'s inspiration from it , I suggested awarding people who creativly transform the content by allowing them to use it.
Objections, as I see so far, only one is valid : This starts as a personnal project and the major developers distrust the public , therefore they will never give out more freedom to the public.
After this short summary, I would like to add two point here:
a) In response to the valid objection, I could only say that if you distrust your customer, please, close source the whole project and make it private. If one assumed bad faith to the people they\'re serving, they shouldn\'t continue at all, which can only create more tension.
b) I\'ve recently discovered the lessshift, and this actually add as a point against using the restictive game content license as it is now. At the very first post, the goal number 1 is to avoid \"divide and conquer\" ( of human resource) at all cost, in which under this spirit the game content license is set up. However, this license in turns caused the lessshift fork from the planeshift, which is a division of manpower, which is just exactly going against goal number 1. See it? The license is actually doing harm now, however, if we face this issue seriously, we may still be able to avoid too much damages.
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I\'m quite new to this License fuss and Open Source stuff but I really want to understand this so excuse me if what I say seems utterly retarded - or just totally wrong. It\'s \"PS License for dummies\" ;).
So lemontea, what you\'re saying is roughly that the ability of creating, modifying - and improving PS Art being restricted to the PS Team is not a good thing, and that just anyone should be able to participate in order to have as much improvements as possible ?
But just anyone can open Photoshop, take, say, a splash screen or concept art for PS, scribble some ugly stuff, save it and say \"look, I made a great drawing\" - this is much more easy than modifying code, that implies some knowledge, a knowledge more difficult to obtain than just learning to open Paint.
Consequently, this \"openness\" should be somehow restricted to improvement alone, whether of Planeshift or of another project.
Concerning Planeshift, is it not what the License already does ? Protecting art from being reused and claimed by just anyone, and making sure it stays where it was intended to be ?
And are artists ready to \"give up\" their art, such a personnal thing as their very own creations, to something they won\'t be able to control (like another project) ?
I find this relationship between art and openness very confusing, and that\'s not something you often hear of. Artists\' habit is usually to try to protect their art from reuse as much as possible. As an artist, my first reaction when fken said to me \"you could make your art opensource\" was like \"HELL NO !\".
How can you make sure that something freely available and as easy to manipulate as drawings or music will be protected so that it can only be used in a \"good way\" ?
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Besides (I just have to add this), since you\'re ovbiously not a developer in the Atomic Blue Non-Profit Organization, why do you care so much about a license, that all the developers in this organization do not have a problem with? It\'s true you\'re not the first person to come here and whine about how stupid and terrible the license is, but seriously, why does the license need to be changed just because you disagree with it? What is it about you that makes you think you have the right to decide it\'s a bad license? It\'s been working good so far, so what is the problem with it? Sure some potential supporters are lost because of it, but if they can\'t handle that there are rules, and rules are there to be kept, then what do we need them for?
In short: Why do you care so much about a license you\'re not restricted by? Did you plan on stealing stuff from PS? Is that why you want it to be loosened up? So you can take all the art and then make your own game named \"ScanePlift\", which you\'ll then sell for money? Well tough luck. :)
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I\'m not sure saying \"we don\'t care about the users\' opinion anyway\" is really in adequation with the concept of a game released under a free licence (even partially). ;)
Originally posted by Kiva
Did you plan on stealing stuff from PS? Is that why you want it to be loosened up? So you can take all the art and then make your own game named \"ScanePlift\", which you\'ll then sell for money? Well tough luck. :)
Well isn\'t this the point of a free licence in the first place ?
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Originally posted by Caym
I\'m not sure saying \"we don\'t care about the users\' opinion anyway\" is really in adequation with the concept of a game released under a free licence (even partially). ;)
Originally posted by Kiva
Did you plan on stealing stuff from PS? Is that why you want it to be loosened up? So you can take all the art and then make your own game named \"ScanePlift\", which you\'ll then sell for money? Well tough luck. :)
Well isn\'t this the point of a free licence in the first place ?
No. Using a free licence is offering what is already done and will be done in the future in exchange for help in developing it further. Thats the basic idea. And it is up to those developing if and with which particular license they want to go that way. Cause its their work.
For that i dont know why lemontea is insistent on arguing over and over about the art licence. I dont understand why he is unable to accept the decision by the PS team.
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It should be said that I think that the current arrangements for PS regarding licenses are the best possible solution.
As I see it, the real problem would be if a company started selling PS CD/DVD copies as their product, which this way of licensing solves (And don?t tell me that this wouldn?t happened, we live In a world where people gladly starts a war because of something as stupid as power, and besides it has already happened for a few other software products (I can?t remember the exacts situations)).
As it is now, the PS engine (if one can call it that) is under GPL which means that it could be used as a base for creating a lot of games.
The database (art, sound, rules etc.) are under the PS license because it seems necessary if you are working with artists, and because the people behind Planeshift want a unique game (as in you are not able to copy the game change the Splash screens and then call it you own game) and since they lead the whole project, then guess what? They actually kind of have the power here!
As I see it, this is the optimal solution, and if the unthinkable thing happens that Atomic blue Shuts down the whole PS project, then don?t you think that they would GPL all the work before doing so ?
Just my 5 cents, hope that it is okay
/Kunisch
PS.: Sorry it this seams like a meaningless post, but I have spend the last week arguing over this license (with IRL friends) and it makes me kind of frustrated.
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Holy moly! I thought I would register at this forum much later, only when the game is more mature. But after reading this thread, I just couldn\'t resist. Let me start by saying this -- guys, RELAX!!! I\'m not sure if I\'m understanding the license correctly or not but I do believe that sound/music, art and similar being protected against butchery is a good thing. So, I completely agree with the devs on that. However, I was disappointed (well, even disgusted at times) at how some of the devs (well, mostly kiva) responses sounded. You may disagree with the guy but he wasn\'t even hostile or hateful. It sounded like he knew that the devs have agreed on a certain license. Nowhere was he taking it upon himself to decide what it should be like. To me, it sounded like he was simply talking, discussing things. He only made a suggestion and listed advantages he thought it would have, even if he was wrong in his observations. If you don\'t agree with him, fine but there\'s no need to assume that anyone who wants to contribute is a worthless idiot. That only makes you an idiot yourself.
Please, people, just calm down. I\'m actually so excited about this project. I cannot even imagine how much work it must be for the devs to even take the game this far. And for free! I truely hope this project will live on and continue improving.
Actually, I\'ve been wondering about the creative contributions myself. I agree that any and all little patches and/or artwork or audio work should not be automatically accepted. But are the developers going to frown upon even suggested contributions? Let\'s say I was so inspired by the game that I wanted to make a really detailed, ORIGINAL and skillfully drawn armor skin. I then post a message on the boards here asking if people like it. Perhaps even make a vote on this and other peoples\' contributions. Then, the winner of the players\' vote simply says, \"feel free to use it in PlaneShift, if you like (with the credit being given to the author, of course), and if not, it was a blast creating something anyway\". Are the devs automatically going to ignore it, no matter how good of a work it is, or are they going to at least take a look at it? What if they really like it? Will they then not use it, even though the author would love them to? Don\'t forget that an author never expects for their contirbution to be automatically included -- ONLY if people on the boards and the devs all agree that they like it.
I want to know if it\'s a waste of time trying to contribute something as only a suggestion, not an expectation. Because in that case, I\'d rather forget PS until it\'s out as a late beta or a final project, and maybe give it a try only from a players\' perspective. While PS team does have \"HELP US!\" in large letters on their site, it usually concerns a full position on a team. I\'m talking about an occassional contribution that would be included ONLY if majority of players and devs would agree on.
How about holding a monthly (ok, doesn\'t have to be monthly, whenever) contest on a new armor or weapon skin and/or model? Then voting on a winner. And then devs can include it in the game, if they too really like it?
I usually hate arguing, so if this just keeps being more fueled with frustration and aggrevation, I probably won\'t reply to this again.
Thanks. :)
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@Caym:
1)Not exactly as you said, let me clarify: The mode of development I suggested is that the public is free to offer Suggestions for improvments. There will always be a filtering process which decide whether that\'s good or not.
Adventage:
It allow more flexibility because there are a wide diversity of people, each providing some different or similar viewpoint.
If the filtering is well done, it could also boost both quality and speed.
Disadventages:
The filtering process may be slow or difficult to work properly.
If the filtering is not well done, it could cause chaos.
2)My main suggestion is that not only improvement for Planeshift are welcome ( which for the game content, currently is not except for the author/core team himself/themself) , but also allowing people to use creatively made derivative work, as a reward for their creativity.
@Kiva:
1)I did not just come and complain the license was terrible, stupid, or otherwise. I just critize it and try to discuss the varies alternative possibilties. In fact, I do list both the adventage and disadventage, if you lookup the post made before.
2)You think that\'s rules, and that\'s the main problem. Rules are not perfect, in fact, many law can have holes in itself. I\'m sorry to say that if you think the license are set in stone in the first place and do not accept any discussion on it, then you\'re pretty closed-minded.
3)Besides, you have no need to worry about any possible conspiracy. Although not a core developer of Planeshift, I do care about this game and open source development in general. I myself am developer of a small game that\'s undergoing development, and I am very serious about, and respect, intellectual properties, copyrights, etc. I believe that I\'m a civilian myself in that I\'m open to discussion, wanting to contribute constructively, and seek improvement of the community as a whole as honor. Assumption of bad faith, on the other hand, is a sad thing to see in community in that it create tension.
@Caym(2) :
\"Don\'t care about user\" is never equal to \"free(dom) license\" . In fact, many free(dom) licensed software have managed to achieve a high standard that are comparable, or even surpass, the commercial counterpart.
@zinder:
Because people, until now, seems to still misintercepted my idea and the discussion has barely started(in terms of meaningful points)
@Kunisch: See the @Caym: 2) part for main point.
@Chicane: Welcome! I would like to hear more from you. Especially the organising process - Deciding whether a community contribution is good or not , what can we do make sure it work smoothly? I\'ve seen too many times this decide the success or failure of the project.
Also, you may want to refer to @Caym: 2) for my main point. Just make sure you get what I\'m thinking right before we go on.
Edit: And after reading your post seriously, I found that you do mention not regularly made contributions. I would be interested to hear more details from both you and developers about the current process(how is it done currently? ) on the selection of contributions.
Note for all : It seems that currently the discussion is not interactive at all, it\'s always me replying to someone, and that person reply to me... Can\'t we discuss in a more open, and productive way?
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I think this post has steered in a very wrong direction. Perhaps even a bit too late to recover because a lot of people will first go through not so pleasant posts before they get to a normal discussion. I\'m thinking it\'s best to let this thread die, wait a little and make a new post titled \"Suggested Contributions/Content\" or something similar, give a polite and respectful introduction that your intentions aren\'t ill, and that you appreciate the devs\' work, that you\'re only discussing things, not trying to force your opinion on anyone, that you admit you could be wrong and do not mind being corrected, and so on. Most importantly, there has to be a \"take it easy!\" type of feeling set up. Be respectful to other peoples\' opinions, even if they\'re different from yours etc. And it might work. :)
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i see some problems with the actual actual licensing:
-a artist gives away the rights of his own art, its not his art anymore, he cant use it somewhere else
-when you code for PS, you give away the rights on your code. sure, it is gpl. but if the team wants to change the licence to closed source, they can do that without asking every coder involved in the code
for me as a coder the second one is the biggest problem
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Originally posted by Asraniel
i see some problems with the actual actual licensing:
-a artist gives away the rights of his own art, its not his art anymore, he cant use it somewhere else
-when you code for PS, you give away the rights on your code. sure, it is gpl. but if the team wants to change the licence to closed source, they can do that without asking every coder involved in the code
for me as a coder the second one is the biggest problem
I honestly don\'t see the problem there?
If you paint a picture and give it to someone so they can put it in their living room, you wouldn\'t suddenly come and say \"Hey I need my picture back because I want to give it to someone else instead\". Would you?
If you helped build a car with some of your friends, you wouldn\'t suddenly come and say \"Hey I need my parts back because I want to help someone else build a car instead\". Would you?
It\'s the same deal here. You contribute to help the project, not to be able to take everything back if you suddenly don\'t like them anymore. Besides, if you were part of the team and you had programmed some bits of the game, why on earth would you ever even think about screwing up everything, by removing your bits and using them for some other project that might seem more interesting?
I want to know if it\'s a waste of time trying to contribute something as only a suggestion, not an expectation. Because in that case, I\'d rather forget PS until it\'s out as a late beta or a final project, and maybe give it a try only from a players\' perspective. While PS team does have \"HELP US!\" in large letters on their site, it usually concerns a full position on a team. I\'m talking about an occassional contribution that would be included ONLY if majority of players and devs would agree on.
Send a mail to Luca (or Keith if you\'re contributing code), and if they can use it they will. If not, they wont. It\'s as simple as that. I also know some of the devs check the fan art from time to time, trying to make the people who do good things there join the team. So the problem isn\'t about contributing, the problem is accepting that you give the stuff to the PS devs, you don\'t just lend it to them.
However, I was disappointed (well, even disgusted at times) at how some of the devs (well, mostly kiva) responses sounded.
I asked him a simple question (why he cares so much when he\'s not affected by this license anyway). The fact that he can\'t answer that question, and that you think it sounded rude isn\'t really anything I can do to prevent. It all depends on how you choose to read my messages. Just because I don\'t make :P :( :) :S :D :F :E :I :# or :% a lot in my posts, doesn\'t automatically mean that every time I make a post, I\'m furiously mad at someone. I just enjoy making people look stupid/making them realize there are so many things they never thought of (which is by far what I\'m best at).
Oh, and if I choose to make an ass of myself, then you are definitely not the person to tell me I shouldn\'t. There are no people I respect less than those who think they can tell others they\'re idiots, and mean it. You have to remember that I\'m a mod. I\'m not here to provoke people or make offensive comments, I\'m here to make sure others don\'t do it, but if you decide that whatever I say is something bad, be my guest. But I\'d prefer it if you keep your thoughts about me in PM, so I won\'t need to start editing them out of your posts. :) <-- Look - Happy smilie. That means it\'s funny. Not offensive.
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I have read this thread with keen interest. Almost everyone has made some constructive statements.
What I have a hard time understanding is the term \"free.\"
How can something be given freely yet still wanting control? If it is free, then there should be no strings attached. I do not see how anyone can do this kind of project in today\'s copyright hungry world.
I understand intellectual property is a valued thing. But when I give of my time freely to a volunteer project, I do not expect payment nor to dominate the people I am serving.
Hope I\'m not off thread. I expect the licensing matter to concern a lot of serious PS users.
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@Kiva: I will now answer your question of \"why he cares so much when he\'s not affected by this license anyway\"
Refer to my last post , @Kiva section, point 3 , it explained my motivation to post is because I care about this game and open source development in general , as has been mentioned before. I think you already knew that.
As for the word \"care\" , well, that\'s because I treasure the existence and success of every open source project, and treasure them as a reminder to the whole community our potential. Further I believe in the spirit of open source and I\'m a member of the open source community myself(since I\'m the developer for a game see my last post) , I believe every open source project that success is a honor to all members of open source community, no matter whether he participated in it or not. See my idea of \"community as a whole\" ? I believe if I find any possible way to further improve a project, I should propose it by all mean.
I must say that I\'m disappointed by your assumption that \"people that are not affected by sth will not/ should not be interested in that affair\" . This assumption is simply wrong in that it is a motivation power for many open source project to success. Many contributors are not affected by this game anyway, but they still contribute , then do you ask them \"Why you care our project so much when you will not get any harm/benefit from it?\"
As a conclusion, I hope that you respect me and not treat me as someone with conspiracy, if you keep on that attitude, sorry but I can not go on the discussion.
@Chicane: I\'m sorry, but I don\'t think that will be possible in the near term because people just can\'t get the idea clearly with plain text and sometimes people can be so offensive(even have things similar to personnal attack) that I have to act more seriously and slightly more offensively than I would otherwise be. But I can edit my very first post and add the summary, where to look for the \"heart of the discussion\" , etc. Just give me time to write that( sigh, too busy recently )
@Asraniel & @Kiva:
1)There is no need to worry too much about the gpl, since as far as I remembered, changing license will require all coders (including core team and contributors) to agree, which is not very likely to happen.
2)Kiva, your analogy doesn\'t work too well because the concept is different. In both of your cases, they\'re real physical object, consider the painting, it is virtually impossible to make exact copy of it( although you can make copy that looks similar) ; but here the art is in digital format- which means they can be copyed exactly. While the art Asraniel is talking about is the right- the right to use copies of it elsewhere. That also concide with my point \"the team get way too much right on the game content and this scares away some potential contributors\" .
@Teegress:
First, to bold a word or something, replace your with ,repeat with the case
Free has two meanings in open source world:
\"Free as in beer\" You don\'t need to pay to get them.
\"Free as in freedom\" You have the right to share and improve on it, etc. This concept is a difficult one, I suggest you try searching with the terms \"gpl\", \"open source\", and \"free software\"
And why I started this, is due to concern this game is only partially free(as in freedom). The code is in gpl and is free, but the game content are not. Yet they don\'t state this fact clearly enough on the website- In the about page the summary of licenses is at the bottom. I suggest moving it to the top.
My final goal is that they lessen restriction of the game content by allowing conditional outside use. The reason they ban outside use is \"may be there will be many game using their artwork and their position in the market will then be stolen\" . I proposed to allow outside use if people changed the artwork creatively.
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@Kiva: you dont understand what i was talking about. Your example with the picture has nothing to do with it. On computers you can copy things as many times as you want. So, i dont say that a artist can come and say, \"hei, give me back my texture\", he cant. But he should be allowed to use the same texture somewhere else. I understand the problem of the unicness of the project and you fear a rip off, but look around. how probable is it? not very much, every game makes it own textures/models (most of the time). You cant tell me that in the open source gaming scene you cant tell one game from the other because they all look the same
@lemontea:
Well, gpl is good. but from what i heard, when you contribute code to planeshift, you give also the copyrigth and everything else to the devs. So, if the core devs decide to make this a commercial, closed source game, they can everytime they want. And if they dont plan that, why should they take away the rigths of the coder?
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@Asraniel: That\'s quite a grey area. I\'ve looked up the web page and found this
Source code, other than game rules, are treated as open source software covered by the GNU General Public License, available here http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html with copyright explicitly assigned to Atomic Blue.
The problem is, will the contributor automatically become a member of the Atomic Blue? Also, how will decision of \"Atomic Blue Organisation\" be made? Must there be a majority or even all of members agreeing to make the decision? Or is there a small group of people in the organisation who will make the final decision? I would like to see members in Atomic Blue organisation clarify the situation.
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Originally posted by lemontea
The problem is, will the contributor automatically become a member of the Atomic Blue?
No. You\'re only a member after completing your trial period and signing the PlaneShift NDA.
Also, how will decision of \"Atomic Blue Organisation\" be made? Must there be a majority or even all of members agreeing to make the decision? Or is there a small group of people in the organisation who will make the final decision? I would like to see members in Atomic Blue organisation clarify the situation.
There are 3 leading roles in ABO. Andrew Craig/acraig, Keith Fulton/Vengeance and Luca Pancallo/Talad. They decide what goes on in their respective areas (Andrew - Client stuff, Keith - Server stuff, Luca - Everything). If they don\'t agree, you\'ll have to do it all over, or not at all.
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this means PS could change into a closed source game anytime they want... sorry but thats not what i call a open source game
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Originally posted by Kiva
Originally posted by lemontea
The problem is, will the contributor automatically become a member of the Atomic Blue?
No. You\'re only a member after completing your trial period and signing the PlaneShift NDA.
Not quite. WTB members aren\'t part of Atomic Blue. Only full members are. Signing the NDA just means that Talad owns your soul for all eternity :)
this means PS could change into a closed source game anytime they want... sorry but thats not what i call a open source game
How could it? All content and code is under GPL and/or copyright Atomic Blue, and Atomic Blue is a Non-Profit Corp....
The whole company would have to change to turn this into a commercial project.
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Originally posted by Asraniel
this means PS could change into a closed source game anytime they want... sorry but thats not what i call a open source game
Did you forget that the source code of PS is under the GPL? That means that all source that is released so far cannot be closed again because it has that license and that license cannot be revoked. Of course Atomic Blue may fork a version of the PS code and relicense it under a different (closed or other) license. But even in the extremely unlikely event that that would happen then the original PS source which is available in CVS right now is still GPL and still open.
Greetings,
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Yep, think of Tuxracer - after it was \"closed\", some free development continued under openracer and now with ppracer.
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@jorrit:
well, lets asume a coder gives some code to PS, he dont get in the team because of different reasons. Lets say its a extremly cool AI for the monsters.
Now PS changes to closed source. Hes code is, of course, in the last cvs version that stayed GPL, but also in the closed source version of the game.
If there is no plan to release PS as a closed source game, i dont see why the coder should give the copyright to the PS team and why he cant keep it.
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Originally posted by Asraniel
If there is no plan to release PS as a closed source game, i dont see why the coder should give the copyright to the PS team and why he cant keep it.
Because that guy could be annoyed by something in the future and say: \'Actually, you can\'t use my code any more.\' And then things start to screw up, as his code has to be removed, plus any code which interacts with it and depends on it will have to be rewritten which is a big waste of time.
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Originally posted by Asraniel
@jorrit:
well, lets asume a coder gives some code to PS, he dont get in the team because of different reasons. Lets say its a extremly cool AI for the monsters.
Now PS changes to closed source. Hes code is, of course, in the last cvs version that stayed GPL, but also in the closed source version of the game.
If there is no plan to release PS as a closed source game, i dont see why the coder should give the copyright to the PS team and why he cant keep it.
There are various advantages to having a single copyright holder. One of the major one is that it is possible to relicense PS to another Open Source license if that would be needed. For example, say that the PS team decides that a BSD license would fit PS better (purely hypothetical example). In that case it is easily done since all copyright is assigned to Atomic Blue. If copyrights are assigned to individual authors you have to get permission from every author for the license change.
Greetings,
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IIRC the license cannot be changed from gpl, unless all members of AB vote unanimously to do so.
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Originally posted by tangerine
IIRC the license cannot be changed from gpl, unless all members of AB vote unanimously to do so.
Yes but that\'s the advantage. The members of AB are at least present with PS right now and form an active group. By putting copyright on Atomic Blue it is at least possible to change license. You just have to get the current members to agree. On the other hand if you have individual copyrights and source files are copyright to a member who is no longer with PS then this becomes much harder. It may even be impossible or hard to contact that other person.
In Crystal Space we have such a situation for example. Not that we want to relicense but there are lots of source files that are copyrighted by developers who are no longer contactable.
Greetings,
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I personally would mind if I would loose the complete right over a piece of code on which I have been working hard (and similarly on a piece of art), but it is surely through that it is easier to control the project in its whole in this way, avoiding polemics and such.
It is also true that \"copying\" a piece of code that I have done and re-use it in another project cannot be that impossible, just think that anyway the basic code of the other application must be generically different and you have to change anyway which data structures it is using and so on.
The problem of such a license is that it scares people away. There is surely people that don\'t have any intention of giving the results of their work to somebody else. I know that there are anyway the credits that tells approximately who has done what, but there is a copyright that cannot be taken even if legally you give rights to AB (that might be me ;DDD - ok bad joke based on my initials) or whatsoever. The intellectual property.
Maybe it would be an idea to emphasize more in the credits the authors and members of the team (I notice, for example, that the page with the members doesn\'t seem too updated, or am I wrong?).
And I - personally - would emphasize even more how the intellectual property of the work is still belonging to the original author.
I think it is pretty normal that you do one thing for a project and not for another one, but if you want to re-use something I guess you have enoough intellect (!!!) to re-use it as base for another project.
I might be not that clear, but what I mean is this.
Both in the case of the code and for the art, when you do something for PS or whatever else project, you learn how to do something and you train some skill of yours. Your work is the result of several phases.
What you surely can use it for another project is first of all the experience you gain when you do a piece of code/a 3d model, secondary the basic ideas. You cannot have a Ynnwn in your new game (it would be so strange to have a game with the same races as PS!!!)but you can modify your model at an early stage and make it become a classical elf, change the animations, etc.etc. and this is not - at least following the intellectual property concept (that is absolutely legal) - under any restriction.
I don\'t think, though, that if AB (independently from who is representing AB ) would like to change the license it would take that much.
It is based on consensus, but how many people are at the vertex of the organization?
And I think that this possibility is something that make mainly people dislike the idea.
Ary
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This high volume of replies surprise me, really! And it\'s nice to see the discussion are rolling. I\'ll be doing the clean up and summary, then :)
Note:If you are in a rush, before replying, please, at least read the first and the last paragraph of the summary to get the idea.
Summary
---Must read for participators---
The topic is started by me, and my motion is as follows:
1)Since the game is not completely open source, where the program is GPL and the game content is under Atmoic Blue License, we should state this clearly on the web site, and move the passage that mentioned this in the info page to the top of the page.
2)The game content license has gone into the extreme of protecting itself (over-protective) in that it scares away potential contributors since the Atomic Blue team get all the rights, and more importantly, it is selfish to the public by even not allowing any creatively made derivative work.
I suggested to lessen the restriction by allowing creatively made derivative work.
---End of must read for participators---
2a) Further development of the idea suggest a more transparent process of suggesting possible improvement to the game content.
What follows is some misinterceptions, including thinking I thought the whole game is GPL, and thinking I want to make them all open source. This are all wrong.
However, the discussion does progress, the major objections are:
1) The level of protection for artwork is a must, any lessening on the restriction will cause trouble, since there exist bad people in the public that wanted to spoil it.
2) The restrictions should not be lessened because people will just mess with the content and spoil all the organisation, lowering the quality, breaking the structure and cosistence of the game.
3) The license stated that you cannot do this and that, so you can\'t do this and that.
I countered their arguments with the followings:
1) This defeats the propose and ideology of open source development, since if you distrust the public, you shouldn\'t be giving this game to the public at all.
2) When we make the license more open, we will welcome anyone\'s comments, suggestions, proposal for modification, etc, but still have organisation and filtering, contrary to the belief of many who think open source = no organisation and a mess, this is wrong again.
3)That\'s what we\'re discussing, the possibility to change the license to close the unreasonable part of it.
The discussion then degraded as Kiva assumed me of bad faith(thinking I have conspiracy).
I defended myself by stating that I want the project to success, even if I can\'t do much with it.
---Must read for participators---
After that, the discussion forked into three fontlines:
1)My original motion, see the beginning.
2)Whether the development process for game content should be more open, by allowing people to contribute freely, but with a filtering and organising process. How should the filtering and organising be done is still a major undiscussed area.
3)How is decision made in Atomic Blue organisation, and if they want to change the license, does it need
a- All members and contributors to agree
b- Only all members in the Atomic Blue Organisation agree
c- Only the three master(acraig, Vengeance, Talad) in Atmoic Blue Organisation agree
---End of must read for participators---
That\'s the end of the summary.