License for commercial project

[nsigma]

@loom_weaver

I disagree here. The GPL is used to keep certain freedoms including access to the source. It does not in any way restrict the right to sell the software commercially.

If you release software as GPL then anyone using it can SELL the software as long as they follow the other parts of the GPL including to keep the source available. This is in direct opposition to what the original poster wanted…

Here’s a scenario. You create a cool proof of concept game and release as GPL. Later on Company X takes that GPL code, fully fleshes out the game, and sells it. It becomes even bigger than Minecraft. Company X is totally in their right because they adhere to the GPL by making the source available. Company X doesn’t owe the original poster anything. OP, are you okay with this scenario?

This is theoretically possible, but what company (or hobbyist) in their right mind is going to do this and think they can commercialize it when anyone can just give it away?!

@cylab

This is a highly unlikely scenario, because comercial companies wouldn’t touch GPL code - not even wearing gloves. GPL is a viral license, you don’t want GPL code in a company. Every modification has to be opened under GPL as well, you can’t copy code or even link with GPL code without opening yours. If someone copies over code from a GPLed project in good faith without thinking of the implications, you “infected” that project with the GPL - hence its called a viral license.

Disclaimer - I’m someone with a keen interest in the business possibilities of FLOSS.

+1 for emphasising the unlikelihood of the scenario, but the rest of that paragraph is bordering on FUD. There are a huge number of companies that use GPL code all the time, depending on where it’s going to be used - no problem using it on the server side of a networked game, for example. If it’s network based you could even GPL the client if you control the network (Second Life?) Frankly, all third-party code comes with caveats and implications whatever the license, open or closed - any company that copies third-party code without a clear audit trail deserves all they get, and any employee who does so deserves to be fired!

@cylab

Having said that. GPL is not the License the OP asks for. I don’t know any standard license with this requirements, so he probably just has to pick one and add a non-commercial-use clause to it.

So tell that to the billion-dollar companies who’ve picked the GPL to achieve what the OP asked for.

I would steer well clear of the “non-commercial” clause. As I mentioned above, there’s an interesting (depending on your definition of interesting ) report on the Creative Commons site about issues with the “non-commercial” clause, and the lack of a cross-jurisdictional legal definition. I’d stick with a license that’s had some legal testing.

@cylab

On the other hand, really successful games are made of content, which can be packaged and licensed separately. Raw code is probably not very important, if it’s not the next big industrial strenght graphics technology - and even then…

+1. There’s a 99.9% chance your code will be ignored anyway - stop worrying about it and get coding! ;D

[cylab]

@nsigma

@cylab

This is a highly unlikely scenario, because comercial companies wouldn’t touch GPL code - not even wearing gloves. GPL is a viral license, you don’t want GPL code in a company. Every modification has to be opened under GPL as well, you can’t copy code or even link with GPL code without opening yours. If someone copies over code from a GPLed project in good faith without thinking of the implications, you “infected” that project with the GPL - hence its called a viral license.

Disclaimer - I’m someone with a keen interest in the business possibilities of FLOSS.

+1 for emphasising the unlikelihood of the scenario, but the rest of that paragraph is bordering on FUD. There are a huge number of companies that use GPL code all the time, depending on where it’s going to be used - no problem using it on the server side of a networked game, for example. If it’s network based you could even GPL the client if you control the network (Second Life?) Frankly, all third-party code comes with caveats and implications whatever the license, open or closed - any company that copies third-party code without a clear audit trail deserves all they get, and any employee who does so deserves to be fired!

I somewhat expected such a reply. Maybe I was too lazy to fully explain the various scenarios and implications. So let me clear things up:

• First, even that I used the term “viral license”, I am not an opponent of the GPL at all.
  I simply wanted to illustrate the effect of copying GPL code, so forgive me the M$ FUD language…
  The facts are straight, however…

• Surely there are Companies that already adopted GPL for their own products, but even then,
  they mostly have a clear separation of GPL/non-GPL code and the teams working on it
  (like your client/server example)

• Most “traditional” Companies do stay away from GPLed code for “reuse”, because of the “dangers”
  involved with handling the code. Especially game companies are committed very much to closed source

• The bigger a company gets, the less control and transparency they have about what’s going on
  in the dev teams, so there often is a general constraint to stay away from GPL to don’t take a risk

@nsigma

@cylab

Having said that. GPL is not the License the OP asks for. I don’t know any standard license with this requirements, so he probably just has to pick one and add a non-commercial-use clause to it.

So tell that to the billion-dollar companies who’ve picked the GPL to achieve what the OP asked for.

Maybe the GPL would achieve what the OP wants, but it was not what he asked for

Also I doubt, that there are game companies or even many companies living of selling their own GPLed products in the list. Most companies making money with GPLed software are either distributors/resellers or offering commercial support for their products. The latter is not really a business case for an indie game company…

@nsigma

I would steer well clear of the “non-commercial” clause. As I mentioned above, there’s an interesting (depending on your definition of interesting ) report on the Creative Commons site about issues with the “non-commercial” clause, and the lack of a cross-jurisdictional legal definition. I’d stick with a license that’s had some legal testing.

+1 for this clearification. It’s a shame that you have to be a lawyer nowerdays…

[loom_weaver]

@nsigma

@loom_weaver

I disagree here. The GPL is used to keep certain freedoms including access to the source. It does not in any way restrict the right to sell the software commercially.

If you release software as GPL then anyone using it can SELL the software as long as they follow the other parts of the GPL including to keep the source available. This is in direct opposition to what the original poster wanted…

Here’s a scenario. You create a cool proof of concept game and release as GPL. Later on Company X takes that GPL code, fully fleshes out the game, and sells it. It becomes even bigger than Minecraft. Company X is totally in their right because they adhere to the GPL by making the source available. Company X doesn’t owe the original poster anything. OP, are you okay with this scenario?

This is theoretically possible, but what company (or hobbyist) in their right mind is going to do this and think they can commercialize it when anyone can just give it away?!

It’s a fuzzy line these days. Perhaps the OP released an engine. Or perhaps it’s a browser game and it’s released under the GPL and not the Affero. Or it’s a library and it’s LGPL.

Perhaps the “it becomes bigger than Minecraft” is extremely unlikely but that could be said for 99% of games regardless of license. Basically, if the OP does not want people to commercially capitalize on the code then he shouldn’t use the GPL period.

[nsigma]

@cylab

I somewhat expected such a reply.

Damn, I’m so predictable! ;D

@cylab

Maybe I was too lazy to fully explain the various scenarios and implications. So let me clear things up:

• First, even that I used the term “viral license”, I am not an opponent of the GPL at all.
  I simply wanted to illustrate the effect of copying GPL code, so forgive me the M$ FUD language…
  The facts are straight, however…

• Surely there are Companies that already adopted GPL for their own products, but even then,
  they mostly have a clear separation of GPL/non-GPL code and the teams working on it
  (like your client/server example)

• Most “traditional” Companies do stay away from GPLed code for “reuse”, because of the “dangers”
  involved with handling the code. Especially game companies are committed very much to closed source

• The bigger a company gets, the less control and transparency they have about what’s going on
  in the dev teams, so there often is a general constraint to stay away from GPL to don’t take a risk

I understand all that. It was the implication in your statement that no company would use GPL code, period, which is patently false even in the gaming sector. At the end of the day, it should all come down to cost / benefit analysis, and I stick by my point that a company needs to have good procedures in place for dealing with 3rd-party code wherever it comes from (GPL or not) given all the many other ramifications (licensing costs, patenting issues, field of use clauses, etc. - even just attribution). Treating GPL as somehow different in this regard just seems foolhardy!

@cylab

Maybe the GPL would achieve what the OP wants, but it was not what he asked for

No, the OP asked whether Creative Commons would be suitable, and the Creative Commons FAQ specifically steers people away from using their licenses for code, and towards FSF and GPL!

@cylab

Also I doubt, that there are game companies or even many companies living of selling their own GPLed products in the list. Most companies making money with GPLed software are either distributors/resellers or offering commercial support for their products. The latter is not really a business case for an indie game company…

No, but network subscriptions and/or commercial licensing parts of a game engine / library are potentially, even open code and locked assets is doable. I shouldn’t have used that $1bn market cap as an example! ;D

I fear we may have drifted OT a bit … :persecutioncomplex:

[ruben01]

GPL code will not work for what Gudradain wants, Lugaru (wolfire, humbleindiebundle) release their code as GPL, and their game got into the apple store
they could get the game taken down because the ones that uploaded the other version of the game, used their assets which weren’t available for comercial use

if your game is a huge game with lots of assets, then having just the code available might be enough to keep others from releasing your code as a new game, but if your game is something simple, like a match3, canabalt like game, tower defense, etc, whats is keeping anyone from creating some new assets, and uploading the game with ads just to see if it will work? it sure as hell will be shorter than developing a game from scratch, and as long as their art is better than yours, they won’t mind releasing the source code as well, and even updating to your latest code to benefit from your bugfixes and new features.

Sure you can make like idsoftware and release years later so it doesn’t matter so much, or just have your engine be opensource but your game be closed, but I don’t think that is what Gudradain.

In my case with arielsan, we have the same problem, we want to develop our games in the open, even allow you to take parts of the code, and do whatever you want from it, but wouldn’t be happy if you took our game, improved the assets and uploaded as yours, even if you had to share the source code.

So far the approach we took is, our games make no money so far (only 7 bucks from ads, wiiiiiiii) so we will keep them on github, so we can show code, ask for a review of something, etc, and if at some point the game starts to make money, we will see what we do, either start paying in github to get private repos, of host it somewhere else.

Something that could be closer to what we want, would be to release the engine and libraries, as opensource, and have the game with a license that forbids commercial use, so that you can see the code, learn from it, but that’s it. The thing with that would be that even if someone just uploads it as a free app, with their art, it could still screw us, so the license should also prevent distribution of stuff made with that code.

[nsigma]

@ruben01

GPL code will not work for what Gudradain wants, Lugaru (wolfire, humbleindiebundle) release their code as GPL, and their game got into the apple store
they could get the game taken down because the ones that uploaded the other version of the game, used their assets which weren’t available for comercial use

Interesting way to illustrate your argument with an example of where it wasn’t an issue!

Gudradain would probably be better just keeping the project closed - he mentioned open-source and Creative Commons, not us! The fact is, the GPL is a way of protecting (some of) your commercial interests if you really want to do this, which judging from his latter post is not highest on the agenda.

@ruben01

In my case with arielsan, we have the same problem, we want to develop our games in the open, even allow you to take parts of the code, and do whatever you want from it, but wouldn’t be happy if you took our game, improved the assets and uploaded as yours, even if you had to share the source code.

So far the approach we took is, our games make no money so far (only 7 bucks from ads, wiiiiiiii) so we will keep them on github, so we can show code, ask for a review of something, etc, and if at some point the game starts to make money, we will see what we do, either start paying in github to get private repos, of host it somewhere else.

Something that could be closer to what we want, would be to release the engine and libraries, as opensource, and have the game with a license that forbids commercial use, so that you can see the code, learn from it, but that’s it. The thing with that would be that even if someone just uploads it as a free app, with their art, it could still screw us, so the license should also prevent distribution of stuff made with that code.

This was the section that really made me respond. Aside from sounding like you’re screwing GitHub a little bit , you do realise that the code you’d already released would still be open-source, right? Once it’s started making money sounds a little like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted!

As I mentioned above, non-commercial licenses are a bit of a grey area. And another grey area is how much learning from your code constitutes making a derivative work. With all your caveats, I don’t see why you’re not just developing this closed, and opening up select snippets of the code through your blog or such?

[Gudradain]

@ruben01

GPL code will not work for what Gudradain wants, Lugaru (wolfire, humbleindiebundle) release their code as GPL, and their game got into the apple store
they could get the game taken down because the ones that uploaded the other version of the game, used their assets which weren’t available for comercial use

if your game is a huge game with lots of assets, then having just the code available might be enough to keep others from releasing your code as a new game, but if your game is something simple, like a match3, canabalt like game, tower defense, etc, whats is keeping anyone from creating some new assets, and uploading the game with ads just to see if it will work? it sure as hell will be shorter than developing a game from scratch, and as long as their art is better than yours, they won’t mind releasing the source code as well, and even updating to your latest code to benefit from your bugfixes and new features.

Sure you can make like idsoftware and release years later so it doesn’t matter so much, or just have your engine be opensource but your game be closed, but I don’t think that is what Gudradain.

In my case with arielsan, we have the same problem, we want to develop our games in the open, even allow you to take parts of the code, and do whatever you want from it, but wouldn’t be happy if you took our game, improved the assets and uploaded as yours, even if you had to share the source code.

So far the approach we took is, our games make no money so far (only 7 bucks from ads, wiiiiiiii) so we will keep them on github, so we can show code, ask for a review of something, etc, and if at some point the game starts to make money, we will see what we do, either start paying in github to get private repos, of host it somewhere else.

Something that could be closer to what we want, would be to release the engine and libraries, as opensource, and have the game with a license that forbids commercial use, so that you can see the code, learn from it, but that’s it. The thing with that would be that even if someone just uploads it as a free app, with their art, it could still screw us, so the license should also prevent distribution of stuff made with that code.

Yeah, we seemed to be pretty much in the same situation Ruben01 and I’m actually doing a Tower Defense game for the Android Market. Since there is really few graphical and sound assets, it would be really easy to copy the code, create new one and resell the game with new art. That is the scenario we want to avoid.

Also, Ruben01, since you are working in a team, do you have some sort of protection for your work inside the team or it’s not needed? Do you just relly on mutual trust that one won’t go away with work and fork the project?

Yeah, I know all these things are probably overkill to think about now and the chance of making lot of money is probably 1 for 1 million, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

[Cero]

@Gudradain

Yeah, I know all these things are probably overkill to think about now and the chance of making lot of money is probably 1 for 1 million, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Actually I would say, it’s just good to know these things

I work in a team of 5 currently. I manage it, I have the vision, I am the lead quite simply and also I trust those guys…
Then again, I know them all in person and we go to the same university…

[ruben01]

Sorry I haven´t answered here, I use google reader to read the forum, and somehow I missed this posts

nsigma: the intention is not to screw github, we are ok with developing our prototipes in the open, and we know that once the code is there, it is open forever, if we at some point feel that continuing to develop our game in the open is against our interest, we will make that change from that point on, not removing or closing the existing source.

Gudradain: we don´t have any protection, we trust each other, and so far we don´t feel that having to split our 7 dollars in revenue from ads will be much of a problem, we can share a pizza and be done with it