Licensing, Opensource, Commericalisation And Versioning Quandries!

[PokeParadox]

OK some of you may know that I work on my homebrew friendly engine, Penjin and I am helping to bring PandoraPanic! to your Pandoras. Penjin is completely open source and free for all non-commercial purposes and always will be. Penjin projects by myself/Pirate Games will also always have full source available.
The main problem I'm having is that I have a nice game idea that I would like to make a commercial game out of. My intention is to sell the game(when ready) but still provide the sourcecode in its entirety for download.
Obviously people could just download the source, compile the game and fill in the blanks in terms of any resources the game would use... I don't have issue with that persé the price point I would set would be very reasonable to discourage freelandering.
The main problem I see is that I want to open up Penjin completely(no more private SVN...) but is this possible when I will be using my own engine for commercial purposes... I'm literally getting in a muddle with this. So I guess what I'm arriving at here is: "Is there some licensing that encompasses this, that is LGPL compatible, or do I have to define my own?"

Another thing I want to avoid is someone submitting a commit to the engine that is next to no effort and then trying to claim my supposed fortune that I may or may get from selling my game (or perhaps licensing Penjin for commercial use...). I also don't want to be seen as profiting from others' work... it's quite the pickle.

Versioning-wise what do people recommend currently? I have been using svn privately and this has worked quite well, but some of the features of GIT sound great, but there doesn't seem to be a mature graphical client... Also I want to keep the source completely open so is something like google code viable when a project could also be used in a commercial capacity.

Anyway, just wondering about your collective thoughts and oppinions!

 

[jlepley]

All I know is that you're allowed to use things like GIMP or Blender to make images and models for commercial games. I don't know how that would apply to a game engine, since you aren't allowed to take open source code and sell it for profit. (under most licenses) Can you just have the Penjin code out there without actually giving it any kind of license and just tell people to do what they want with it?

 

[satanic virus]

Cant help sorry, but if you produce a game I like, i'll be happy to pay for it.

A lot uf users here have coding experience, but a lot (like myself) have none, so licencing issues for people like me mean nothing (in that having a source code available does not mean we can do anything with it!)

 

[Etinin]

The LGPL allows you to do whatever if you want with the code if that's what you asking.
You are not obliged to release modifications under the same license, so you can make whatever changes you want and fork it without having to release the source.

Maybe I misunderstood you, in which case I apologize and kindly ask you to explain it again.

And, well, there are HTML interfaces for GIT, including one which used to be sponsored by Torvalds himself, but that's the closest you're gonna come to a GUI. When it comes to committing changes and editing the branches, I believe you will have to use the console.

 

[PokeParadox]

Hmmm so would it suffice to just spell out something like "You are welcome to contribute to the Penjin project, but please be aware that Penjin can be used for commercial purposes" or something to that effect.

Also I'm not worried about giving out the source, I actually want the source to be available for everything including my commercial projects (a bit strange maybe but I want to keep things in the open)
My real worry is having this notion coincide with licensing (SDL is used for example) and actually being able to create a commercial project if I feel the need.

And just to clarify this has nothing to do with PandoraPanic! that is a free game for and by the community and will forever stay as such!

 

[WizardStan]

I'm reasonably certain (in the I Am Not A Lawyer sense) that you're allowed to sell GPLed derivative works so long as you maintain the same licensing as the original.
ie, I could take Blender, change the about page, and then sell it. So long as I provide the source code (even though it is for all intents and purposes the same as the original) I've done nothing wrong. I may be oversimplifying or missing something though.
I don't see why GPL would cause a problem for you, so long as you understand that anyone could then download the source you're selling, recompile it, and give it away for free. It's the resources you would own full rights to and have to protect.

 

[Orkie]

If you want anybody to use the code... just use BSD? You can use LGPL, which means you can link to it without releasing the code of anything linked in, but if somebody else changes the code for the engine itself they would have to release it. If you get contributors to assign copyright to you and make it clear that you will use it for your commercial thing (just so that nobody gets pissed off) then you are legally allowed to do whatever you like with it - you aren't bound by the license on code you own.

 

[gp32rich]

It sounds like you're trying to overcomplicate things.

You want to release the source. You may want to sell something derived from that source.

As long as everyone who contributes is aware of that, there shouldn't be a problem.
To try to fit your philosophy to a licence would just confuse the issue.

 

[PokeParadox]

Thanks guys, I'm also not very aware of all the legal mumbo jumbo and just don't want to step on any toes... I think it's a lot clearer now!

 

[lulzfish]

I think Irrlicht is licensed for some commercial games, maybe you can look into how they've solved this.

 

[Etinin]

There is some confusion between the GPL and the LGPL.
To simplify it:
If you use the GPL, any changes you make have to be released under that license. You also cannot make any proprietary software depending on it (if it's a library, for example) without releasing it under the GPL.
If you use the LGPL, you are not obliged to release any changes made to the code.

If you are the creator, you can release something under the GPL and still modify it and not release the changes, since you can choose to release the code under any other license at any time as the copyright holder. That is the situation of Penjin. If you want to prevent people from taking your code and modifying them without releasing the source while still being able to do whatever you want with the code yourself, you can still use the GPL.

 

[AireTamStorm]

Since you're the sole owner and maintainer of the code, you can fork your code out as you wish. See below:

Closed Branch
0.01 => 0.02 => 0.03 => 0.04 => 0.05 => 0.06 => 0.07 => ....
Open Branch(GPL) ||______________________||
________________0.03o => 0.03.1o_________||
________________________________________0.06o => ....

You don't have to release 0.01, 2, 4, 5, or 7 with this licensing scheme.
Any changes to the GPL'd COPY must be GPL from that point on. You can keep your main branch closed and dump a copy of it out
to your open branch without having the GPL come back to corrupt your closed branch' licensing scheme.

Its a one-way street. Your code can go out to GPL as a copy, but the GPL'd copy's modifications cannot be committed back to your closed branch.

 

[Orkie]

There is some confusion between the GPL and the LGPL.
To simplify it:
If you use the GPL, any changes you make have to be released under that license. You also cannot make any proprietary software depending on it (if it's a library, for example) without releasing it under the GPL.
If you use the LGPL, you are not obliged to release any changes made to the code.

Umm, actually you do need to release changes to LGPL-ed code. The difference between them is that you don't have to make your code the same license to link against it.

Its a one-way street. Your code can go out to GPL as a copy, but the GPL'd copy's modifications cannot be committed back to your closed branch.

They can, as long as you are the copyright holder (i.e. get contributors to assign it to you as part of the submission process).