Re: Copyright problem with new maelstrom licence
On Fri, Mar 24, 2000 at 02:15:24AM +0000, Christoph Baumann wrote:
> Hi!
>
> The game maelstrom has been released with a completely new source code and
> is now licenced under GPL. The following text is included in the source
> tar ball:
> <quote>
> The source code to Maelstrom 3.0 and higher has been released under
> the GNU General Public License which can be found in COPYING.GPL.
>
> The artwork and sounds used by Maelstrom are copyright Ambrosia Software
> (http://www.ambrosiasw.com) and may not be redistributed separately from
> the Maelstrom public GPL release.
>
> The following files must accompany any distribution of Maeltrom 3.0:
> Ambrosia_Software,_Inc._FAQ
> MaelstromGPL_press_release
> They can be found in the Docs directory.
>
> Copying, modifying, bundling, and burning to new ROMs is encouraged!
> </quote>
>
> The question is: is this non-free or not. The graphics are copyright of
> Ambrosia, but there is no statement that restricts anything more than
> stated above. Would it still be free if the artwork can only be
> distributed with the game?
This has some problems. It says it's GPL'ed, and then adds new
requirements (to bring these documents along.) About the graphics,
I think it was decided that the graphics in this case are part of
the software, and therefor must be free, which they aren't. (Leaving
of the discussion/flamewar about whether they would need to be
free if they weren't part of the software.) Look up Postilion in the
archives for more discussion on the subject.
--
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
Only a nerd would worry about wrong parentheses with
square brackets. But that's what mathematicians are.
-- Dr. Burchard, math professor at OSU
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