Warzone 2100 licensing and copyright issues

[Kamaze]

This thread frightens me is this at rest?

If not is there a way I can buy the old game for a resonable price for the data files? maybe ebay huh?
Or would that too be questionable on legitamicy?

Then you have *.wdg files. Which are not used anymore.
I think the data is open source too and the licence is just unsuccessfully written.

[DevUrandom]

For those who do not read the development mailinglist:
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.ga ... .devel/438

[Terminator]

As for me , so this licensing and copyright (& GPL) is a real sh*t.  In Russia for exemple: no one dont look on copyright. Simlpe Users just use all what they can find in the internet. If you think that Someday "men in black" will knocked in your door & get to the prison. Its like a Jack Slater said - "Big Mistak" ;D
I think WRP made this headach by themself. I recomend don't look on GPL & use all we have on this moment. Eidos is not so little company that will be spend their time on a little group like WRP with thier old project like  a warzone2100 which was not so popular in its time. :-[

"Minority report"

[DevUrandom]

We can't say "Because other people don't care about copyright, we won't care either", sorry.

[Rman Virgil]

* There's an expression - "spinning your wheels"... like a hamster on a treadmill.

* I've studied all the legal stuff & there is no problem.

* I very much care about copyright law, so do SCi & Pivotal - but THAT is really NOT the issue here.

* The problem is the fear based SPECULATION that the "freebie service providors" (server, bandwith, ver. control sw, etc. for free) will have a ZEALOUS & IRRATIONAL response to the GPL license as written and withdraw their "free services".

* Is there anything about those statements (repeated, I might add) that is not clear as the day is long ?

* Is there a language issue here ?

* WHAT is the response to those REPEATED statements - there really has been NOTHING in response to the last few posts I've made which is why I mention that maybe something is being lost in "translation".

* Let's make it real plain -

* WHERE does the Resurection Project stand right now as far as the last posted downloads of the cross-platform WZ ?

* Are they gonna continue to be witheld from the public ?

* If so - is there any objection to making them available from a service that is being payed for ?

* And if there is an objection - what is the rationale ?

* Maybe this is all more miss-understanding than anything else... so let's get some answers to the above ?'s and perhaps speedily resolve this somewhat manufactured impasse.

- RV

[DevUrandom]

You might not be happy about me saying this, but I guess that there could be less answers to your posts from my side because I simply have problems to understand you. Not because your english is bad, but because it is too good. Simply to high for me... Sorry...

Could you try to rephrase your concerns please? What exactly is the problem? What is being witheld? Are there any issues with the mail from the SFLC? Or with my mail to them? Or with their (and other's) idea to officially inform Eidos in a documented fashion about our existance and our usage of the released data? ...?

PS: You said something about "rewrite the GPL":
I don't want anyone to write the successor to the GPLv2. (The FSF is allready doing that and you can think of the results whatever you want.)
What is needed is just a clear statement what license the data is under.
A simple "the data and sourcecode are released under the terms of the GPL" would be totally enough. No need to write lenghty licenses...
If they don't want their data to be under the GPL they can have a look at other licenses like the CC or simply think of some simple terms like "provided as is without guarantess giving the right to distribute and modify".

[Rman Virgil]

* DevUrandom - thank you, this last post makes for a much better understanding.

* Btw... IMHO, the way everything is being handled (developement, administration, public relations, this bb  & so on) is quite excellent.

* Your leadership, DevU, is first class & the WZ Resurrection Project is, IMO, in very capable hands.

* Also - it's SCi (NOT Eidos) that holds the copyright.

- Rman
 

[jeff_sadowski]

This thread frightens me is this at rest?

If not is there a way I can buy the old game for a resonable price for the data files? maybe ebay huh?
Or would that too be questionable on legitamicy?

Then you have *.wdg files. Which are not used anymore.
I think the data is open source too and the licence is just unsuccessfully written.

One of us or both of us are missunderstanding the other.

I never owned the game because I never saw it on sale in my area.
If it turns out you are not allowed to distribute warzone2100 resurection with the data files I would like a leagle copy of the data files. It seems as though the game is no longer sold off of an assembly line (thus not new)
I guess I mistakenly called it "old" but I did not know how else to address it. Would I be able to use the data files from the warzone2100 pc games I find on ebay? I only see one era of the game. Was there an older version sold that used *.wdg files? Was there a slightly newer version sold that uses data files that can be used with the open sourced engine?

The only files I have are the ones distributed on this sight.

Or are you saying that this open source engine was developed around data files that you can only get from the opensource release? If you can't get them any other way it does kinda imply that the data files are free to distribute. Not neccisarily gpled. I could not follow the other posts I have a hard time following what is going on

[DevUrandom]

The data is very probably GPL or otherwise free, we just need a final word from the copyright holders.
There is no original version of the game that uses something else than .wdg files. They can somehow be extracted and compressed to .wz files. Rod seems to have some automation for that.
But we also have modified the data greatly and especially the filenames (which are handled case sensitive on Unix systems (I don't know on others) by the engine now) would be a problem.
So if the data we currently use would be declared illegal, then we'd have a big problem...
I don't think that will happen, but the other option (they say it is legal) seems to be far away, too.

[jeff_sadowski]

So the letter/email was sent already right? Or are you still trying to find exactly who to send it to?
Or modifying it so it reads the best? Just Curious how this is going. If already send how many days has it been with no responce?

[DevUrandom]

Not sent, no time, no text.

[xpanthom]

I had a discussion with DevUrandom last night about not worrying too much about these licensing problems. As I said earlier, the WZ team can be said to be in good faith since you have made your interpretation of the readme, acted accordingly and not heard from any of the original proprietors. You have also tried to get a clarification from the original proprietors, which means that the requirements for good faith – "did not know and did not have any reason to believe" – are met.

A disclaimer has apparently been written where the WZ team states that it has chosen to interpret the readme as putting also the data under the GPL. This could be a good idea, although not necessarily. The whole concept of good faith is that it never actually comes into use unless someone brings a lawsuit. Writing out that there are problems with the interpretation could have an adverse effect if the original proprietor is bought by another company and they start investigating their assets. Basically you open up for malicious interpretations by saying that you aren't sure.

Maybe a new, clear, basic GPL license would be the best way to go about this – a license without the ambiguity of the readme and without the disclaimer. Actually you should relicense WZ, because the readme is about how the WZ team got it, but it doesn't really fit as a license that concerns the end-users.

I strongly suspect that you will never be quite sure of the status of the data. There will be no definite "yes" or "no". But as more and more time passes, the stronger the assumption of GPL:ed data grows. You need to continue with the project as before, because there's nothing else you really can do.

[DevUrandom]

Doesn't relicensing depend on the fact that the relicensing person(s) own(s) the copyright?

How do you think that "new, clear, basic GPL license" should look? A modified GPL with special Warzone paragraphs? Won't probably be possible, for the same reason as the above.

[xpanthom]

Hmm. You may be right there. I'll look into it. Just ignore the paragraph about relicensing for now.

[cybersphinx]

OK, several things:

First, DON'T change the GPL itself. If you make a changed version of it, you cannot call it GPL anymore. (For the same reason I'd keep the GPL text always in a separate file; I think there was a question on the mailing list about that some time ago.)

To relicense something you need to have the rights the new license grants. So if you want to put something under the GPL, it has to be released under a license that permits _at least_ everything the GPL permits. Example: Something in the Public Domain can be licensed under the GPL. The original work is still licensed as Public Domain, the GPL doesn't change that. But subsequent changes will be GPL only, _not_ Public Domain (unless the author explicitely states otherwise).

Now if we had the rights we need to relicense, there'd be no need to do it. But we do not have those rights, at least not explicitely and unambiguously stated.

You said that explicitely using the good faith approach might not be the best idea. So what do you suggest? We need some kind of justification for distributing the data in the absence of an explicit permission.