Nevrax - Reinventing the wheel

[Bigfoot]

Wow Ryzom is finaly in beta testing, theyve come along way... damn havent been to there sight in ages (glad some one posted a working link, since all the ones ive looked for had stoped working).

There style has changed a little, still so original though.

**updates his moldy old link**

[Guest]

Originally posted by windwalker
its rather simple.  If you want to donate art to the PS team then they claim full rights over it because they dont want it showing up in another game.  Its your choise to donate it and fall under there rules, dont like the rules dont donate.  simple

well put, I don\'t think serious developers will donate full rights to their work... it seems common sense to me... if you ever want to compete like linux does with microsoft (that\'s what acraig was reffering to), you have to understand Free Software: something created by the community should be open to the community to work with.

[Guest]

Thank you Vengeance. You were most insightfull. You\'ve answered all of my questions.

Best of luck, I hope my greatest fear (that the artwork donated to you guys isn\'t wasted) never comes to be.

Again, best of luck, I\'ll check out Arianne and Once.

[Guest]

Originally posted by Kiern
aren\'t those kind of names not allowed?  That has been bothering me...

yeah, my other account never went through on activation, and when i tried to log in, the default user name in there was \'guest\', which made me wonder if i could make a name like that... maybe i should try \'administrator\' next

[Administrator]

lol. ok. i\'m done.

au revoir. good night. arivederchi. do svidania.

have a nice life.

[Administrator]

ok, one last question.

anyone know of any \"big art\" projects that use NeL?

[Talad]

To answer Guest:

At the time we choosen Crystal Space (year 2000), Nevrax was at the early stages of development, it had primitive network support, no AI, and most of the features were similar to CrystalSpace ones, with the BIG difference that they guys aimed for a commercial project, so you never know what may happen. They could easily stop development of the Open Source platform and make it closed source from that point on. Our choice on CrystalSpace has been made looking at the development team of CS and his potential. Given the fact that CS was a true GPL project, with aim to remain as such, we made our choice. Also the personal relations with CS team were quite good and that allowed us to work so closely with them to simply ask features we needed and see them starting implementing. On the other side PS has given a good speed up to CS since many of our developers worked on it also. Right now Nevrax seems a good engine, but surely CS has more support from the community and larger audience.

From the GPL point of view I think we are a lot more close to Free Software than nevrax people. They created a free engine for a commercial game, we and CS are creating a free engine for a free game (PS).

[Administrator]

Thank you Talad.

May I still ask why it is that I must give up nearly all of my rights to a piece of art I have made when donating it to you?

[Talad]

Having art under GPL will have as a result a real loss in uniqueness and characterization. No game can share his assets with other games, no one has ever done that and for good reasons.

About property of assets, you are not donating those to me, but to the PlaneShift project, that is a free project made for the community of players. Becoming a developer you become part of the team and so you own the copyrights of all assets as part of the project. This is to highlight that assets are not mine at all, but are of the project PlaneShift itself, that will have a life even without all the current developers.

If you need more details the reasons behind the license and why it should be like that are explained in details in our license.

[Djaggernaut]

Yes, the \"art\" in a game is something wich gives a pretty unique feeling to it.
And don\'t think because it\'s under GPL you\'ll have more right on it.
Speaking of Arianne project, I\'ve contributed there for 4 years. After what I\'ve felt like a betrayal I decided to leave the project with all the graphics I made (almost all the Arianne GFX) wich has been refused because it was under GPL.
I feel safer with PS if you want my opinion.

And project like that are pretty interesting for \"serious\" artists, you have far more freedom.
I\'ve worked with someone from Rhyzom team on a free project, and even if it\'s cool to work on a commercial project, you\'re still limited he said.

Also, don\'t forget that actually the contribution from community to the art section is almost at 0.
This is the people from the team who are doing the graphics.

[Beregar]

I just wanted to point out something that might be of interest for all those donating or accepting donated work here:

This works perfectly well in the USA and UK, I think, but... in European countries not related to any Anglosaxon tradition, the historical view on copyright is fundamentally different. This results in the fact that here in Europe (I am German) no one can donate a copyright, or give it up.

IANAL, sure thing, but the only thing you can donate or license is the right to use the created work, but the author will always remain the author and keep the copyright itself.

This makes the whole transatlantic licensing of digital music so ... interesting, but that is another story and shall be told another time.

My point is: check your contracts or whatever you use. You might end up with european donations that are suddenly used somewhere else. And rightfully so! Make sure that laws of some specific country are binding or something... not the country of the author or whatever.

[zinder]

Im IANAL too. And you are right you cannot give away \"Urheberrechte\" (\"autors rights\" ) , but AFAIK the equivalent in germany for donating copyright is donating \"Verwertungsrechte\".
AFAIK this concept originated from napoleons law book and is used in all countries Napoleon conquered.

I am pretty sure the PS Team has considered this, cause as the site states: \"The main headquarter is located in Italy.\"

[Talad]

We have a lawyer that takes care of that, and I assure you it\'s quite normal to donate copyright. The simplest example is when you work for a company. They keep the copyright of your work.

[Xalthar]

/me bows before the mighty Talad

there you have it

[Administrator]

Originally posted by Talad
The simplest example is when you work for a company. They keep the copyright of your work.

yes, but they pay you (and therefore feed/house/entertain you) for the time that you work for them. that\'s the POINT of Free Software (FS): it\'s not about donating your time, it\'s about donating a copy of what you\'ve created (and therefore not giving anything, only sharing).

Asking for a donated copyright is like asking for ... money (ie you won\'t raise as much as a private competitor has). Which goes back to my original point:

You cannot create software that will compete with anyone, espacitally not with big games, by asking for people to donate copyrights. It has never (and will never) been done.

Open Office competes with MS Office for the same reason that
Mplayer competes with WMPlayer for the same reason that
Linux competes with Windows etc, etc, etc.

The reason being they are FREE SOFTWARE. This means that are considered public, not private property. You consider your art to be private (your) property (and, if I am not being too bold, it is the only thing that your project really is worthwhile noticing for, simply because CS seems to be redundant in the light of NeL), and you ask people to donate copyright for it. I agree with the European perspective: if I spent 50 hours creating a BAUTIFUL 3d model that I\'m extremely proud of, I won\'t just give all of my rights for using that model to a private party. I may give away the right for someone to use it... and that\'s what Free Software is based on.

Releasing your art to the public may just make your project true Free Software (as opposed to a hobby project kinda thing)... do think about it... you won\'t compete with EQ otherwise.