Few points that I would like to express, even if they will be probably redundant because there have been plenty of good replies in this thread.
I would like also to underline that I am the author of Virtual Annel?v, which is a MORPG based on PS engine. It is a finished game, I used not only the code of PS, but also the kindness of the people behind it, who has helped me modelling, doing 2d art, adding the models, the art, implementing new things, understanding the code, etc.
The engine IS open source, the result is that this is an Open Source game, at exception of the \"artistic\" part. You can use the engine, modify it, spread it, etc.etc. (see Virtual Annel?v). However, the licensed part is for free.
You can set up your own server as long as you are not using it for making other people play on it, with the licensed stuff. Usually, plenty of people set up their own server for testing and for contributing with their code to the game. For playing there is an official public server (just one at the moment - who says that in the future they will not be more), I don\'t see the point in having a server where to play with your friends in this kind of games, plus, it would spoil the game - to \"train\" in solving the quests on your \"LAN\" and then come with all the solutions on the public game ;-)
I really don\'t know where did you get from the illegality of this kind of contribution in the European Law. I live in Sweden and I work for a swedish multinational company. In my contract I had to sign several parts to declare that I can\'t even bring the code/resources/other \"company\" material at home, I can\'t talk about certain things, and my code is copyrighted to the company. It is rather normal in the \"job market\" to have this kind of situations, in which you do some work and your work is copyrighted to the company (as Jorrit already stated).
The contribution you make for PS as code shouldn\'t be seen as a theft. All contributions have been appreciated os far and claiming the copyright just assures that a day you won\'t wake up pretending to remove every comma of your code just because you feel like it. If you resign a work, your work will not go away with you from the company and you have no right whatsoever to carry your work in another company.
A lot of people have already resigned to contribute to PS because of the art license. Everybody is free to choose what to do knowing the license, and they chose so. However, it is also true that it would not be pleasant to see clones of the art somewhere else (why would you like to have your art in every other game on earth? it doesn\'t make sense, since the context and setting will be surely different), nor to remove models/texture/music from the game. It is a way to protect the holistic of the game and its uniqueness. Anyway AB doesn\'t gain anything \"personal\" by the ownership of the models, for example, it is just the uniqueness of the game that is protected.
Who uses PS engine is free - if I am right - to use the code for a commercial game (it has happened with Crystal Space code and that\'s not such a strange thing to see). However, it will be the engine and not the \"art\" (sorry for repeating myself) used in any other project.
It\'s true that one day the ABC could wake up and change their minds, but that could happen (and could have happened ) independently and in an uncorrelated way fom rhte actual circumstances. There is that risk, but I don\'t see how that would happen since it is stated everywhere that the game is intended to be free forever and oneiros has described well how the change will not bring so many advantages.
If you are afraid it will happen, I am sorry to hear that, but I believe that if we wanted to make such choice it would have been made already from the start and anyway, I don\'t see the big problem if one day somebody will change its mind. At the end, if his free time that has been used to build such a game :-PPP Crazyness might happen!!!
