"Juan M. Mendez" wrote in message [🔎] acb195480610090855x4aeb1f3dnf827adc151c76ca0@mail.gmail.com">news:[🔎] acb195480610090855x4aeb1f3dnf827adc151c76ca0@mail.gmail.com...
So, I have been investigating. It seems Adam Bryant developed a new version 5 of conquer: http://www.cs.bu.edu/ftp/fs/pub/adb/beta/ where all the files hold notices disallowing redistribution of the code with a notice starting with. /* conquer : Copyright (c) 1992 by Ed Barlow and Adam Bryant */ Some people managed to talk with Adam in 1997 where he said he licensed conquer to a commercial developer, saying title would revert back to him if the company didn't release anything in two years. http://members.aol.com/heiska/ecframe/future.html A press release in 1997 also seems to cerfify that: http://web.archive.org/web/20020804001252//conquerpr.html My doubt is, how this license transfering of the Adam Bryant code could affect the old code of version 4 of conquer released in 1988 in USENET, the one that Ed allowed me to relicense as Free Software.
That commerical deal is probably questionable, as it sounds like (based on that first site) it included an exclusive licence to create derivitives, with an implicit grant for other parties to make derivitives only in a non-commercial fasion. It is really hard to know any of this for sure
as we lack the exact text of the agreement.If Mythic did not make a game using the code, then you are probably fine, as presumably Adam
intended a reversion to the status quo if the commerical deal fell through.If Mythic did make a product based on the code, then it would be worth having them approve the relicencing, basically licencing any legal interest they had in that version of the code.
IANAL, IANADD