[Bf-committers] what is the license of Blender GLSL shaders?

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi Skoti,

That's an interesting viewpoint as well. What I read in the GNU FAQ  
would mean:

Even when we conclude that shader exports from Blender are GPL itself,  
for as long they're not used too link against a program, you can  
freely use them. It becomes like 'data' that way.

AFAIK you can also freely bundle gpl-ed components with non-gpl, for  
as long they're not acting as one single program.

This might be the most elegant solution; I should seek advise from FSF  
on it though :) Googling for the issue doesn't give replies sofar...  
it even shows this thread on the first page!

-Ton-

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org    www.blender.org
Blender Institute   Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam   The Netherlands

On 14 Oct, 2011, at 1:07, skoti wrote:

> Your code is not linked with the shaders, so you do not have to share
> your code.
> You just pass the code to drivers, and there is compiled and sent to  
> the
> graphics card. Code of your program is not connected with the shader,
> and only run it through the driver (which is allowed to run as  
> separate
> programsfrom non-free (shaders is separate programs)
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NFUseGPLPlugins).
>
> Just do not hide the code shaders and shader code, do not changecode
> after reading from a file.
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 19:48, Dalai Felinto wrote:
>> Hi Ton,
>>
>> the shader files (gpu_shader_material.glsl and  
>> gpu_shader_vertex.glsl)
>> have
>> no license header on them.
>> Thus my hope that they were not under the GPL.
>>
>> In fact most of the code snippets we have there are classic
>> implementations.
>> I don't think they can even be under specific license.
>> I find strange to have GPL reinforced over them.
>>
>>> First: there's no "BF" or "BFL" license... it's just "GNU GPL v2
>> or later".
>> I guess I was a bit outdated :p I was referring to this
>> http://www.blender.org/BL/
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Dalai
>>
>> 2011/10/13 Tom M<letterrip at gmail.com>
>>
>>> Ton,
>>>
>>> check with FSF, but I seriously doubt that a shader would be
>>> expressive, and hence is not copyrightable.
>>>
>>> A generated shader is even less likely to be viewed as expressive.
>>>
>>> LetterRip
>>>
>>> On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 1:36 AM, Ton Roosendaal<ton at blender.org>   
>>> wrote:
>>>> Hi Dalai,
>>>>
>>>> First: there's no "BF" or "BFL" license... it's just "GNU GPL v2 or
>>>> later".
>>>>
>>>> If I understand the function well, it's generating a text file  
>>>> using
>>>> the GLSL shader code as in our svn (which is GPL). In that way the
>>>> exported glsl code remains GPL.
>>>>
>>>> -Ton-
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton at blender.org www.blender.org
>>>> Blender Institute   Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam   The  
>>>> Netherlands
>>>>
>>>> On 13 Oct, 2011, at 8:17, Dalai Felinto wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>> I understand that Blender code is under GPL/BF licensing.
>>>>>
>>>>> But if I use the command (added on rev. 40061):
>>>>> shader = gpu.export_shader(scene,material)
>>>>>
>>>>> Is the shader still GPL/BFL? The shader is made of snippets of
>>>>> Blender code,
>>>>> so I can see what lawyers may clam. And technically speaking a  
>>>>> GLSL
>>>>> Shader
>>>>> is a program (compiles and run in the GPU).
>>>>>
>>>>> It would be really sad if this is the case though. Otherwise this
>>>>> could be
>>>>> used for external engines.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Dalai
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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