Re: Alternatives to Creative Commons
On Wed, 17 Sep 2008, Arc Riley wrote:
> There is absolutely no issue licensing game data under the (L/A)GPL. In
> fact, this is required for at least the GPLv3 in that the license applies to
> the "whole of the work, and all it's parts, regardless of how they are
> packaged". Thus if the game code or any dependencies (ie, the engine) are
> licensed under the GPL, the data must be licensed under a GPL compatible
> license (which the CC licenses are not).
One problem with licensing game data under the GPL and variations is that
it's quite common for game data to be created from something much larger--for
instance, using uncompressed audio or video to create an .ogg or .avi.
In order to release it under the GPL (at least if you want people to be
able to distribute it), you have to release the uncompressed audio or video,
since that's the preferred form of modification. Some game creators may not
want to do this simply because of the files' size.
Moreover, you need to include "scripts used to control compilation and
installation of the executable". If the game and data are considered a
single work, then that means you need to include scripts for creating
the audio and video too. If you're editing the audio/video in some weird
format that you don't have a free tool for, this may be a problem.
(For programs, this is covered by the operating system exception, though I'm
still mystified how a C compiler is considered to be "normally distributed
with" Microsoft Windows.)
Reply to: