Junior Member
I think its worth the trouble to switch to something that is GPL compatible. Any GPL compatible license is better than the CDDL. Choosing a GPL incompatible license is usually done to spite GPL software developers (ex. no ZFS for linux).Originally Posted by Feared
Licensing code that is GPL incompatible just further fractures the open source community and puts unnecessary restrictions on what code can be combined with what.
Junior Member
Considering that this is a game engine and is unlikely to take in anything from other engines I don't see any possible fracturing of the community although this may just be my own ignorance. While I agree that this is a negative for something like a file system. This isn't a file system and shouldn't be compared to one, I don't think.
Last edited by Feared; 02-20-2013 at 03:58 PM.
Junior Member
Game engines often contain lots of code that is useful beyond games. Torque had a really impressive network stack for example.
You can never predict where people might take the code and using a GPL incompatible license means that they can't even attempt to take it there. You're trying to go copyleft and get people to contribute, but shut them off from other GPL code so they can only contribute back to you and not take the code to new engines and new ideas.
Junior Member
That's not really the way game engines work. It's difficult copy and paste something from engine A and put it into engine B. Game engine designs differ from one another enough so usually unless they have common ground such as being based off of an idTech engine or something of that sort. It's mostly ideas and general methods/algorithms people are interested in from other game engines and how you implement that is usually different enough to be able to license it into your engine no problem because it's YOUR implementation of the same idea/feature. So long you're not directly copying and pasting code from engine A to engine B (which as I said earlier is near impossible unless it has common ground) you should be okay with whatever license you choose.
Last edited by Feared; 02-20-2013 at 06:16 PM. Reason: so not si
Senior Member
Don't take advice from a forum, especially the one on Phoronix. Very few people here are real developers, even fewer are game developers, and I doubt even one is a lawyer.
If you want advice on licenses, ask real commercial game developers, and then consult a lawyer. Don't ask the peanut gallery what their uninformed, misconceived, biased, frothing opinions are on this. They won't know what the best approach is for you. Even if they mean well and sound reasonable, a wise man checks his decisions with people who actually matter (your target user base: real game developers), not a forum full of ignorant Linux nerds and armchair engineers.
Not saying that MPL 2.0 is a bad choice. It might be the perfect one. Just find out if it's the right one via a better means than asking a "community" of people who aren't even your project's intended consumers.
Junior Member
While I think this was put a little bluntly I'd have to agree, you should be talking to potential developers who ARE looking for a game engine like yours. I think you should put more thought into this before you jump to something as big as a new license too quickly. Good luck with your project and be sure to take your steps carefully with the licensing.
Last edited by Feared; 02-21-2013 at 12:31 AM.
Junior Member
I like how you managed to put the rest of the forum down acting as if you're smarter than everyone else without actually providing your own opinion. Now no one can claim you're wrong since you didn't say anything of substance. Well played.
Junior Member
Of course you're never directly copy pasting between projects. That's really difficult to do with any code and is not specific to game engines. Code needs to be modified to suit what it's moving too. However its still useful to be able to copy code out and create derived projects.
In the Torque example, the network code was released as a standalone networking library. A library that could be very useful to use in new game engines and other network applications. If that code was licensed under something such as the CDDL, then it could never be incorporated with GPL projects.
Well designed projects will often be almost modular enough that components can be moved into standalone libraries without too much effort (ex Torque Network Library). And even if you don't predict people wanting to do that, it's still stupid to release it under a license that would prohibit it in the first place.
The open source community as a whole is stronger when all code is license compatible with all other.
Senior Member
Wikipedia?
It's not real unless there is a Wikipedia page on it and it's part of some open source game engine list there as well.
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