[Bf-committers] Can BGE be relicensed?

[Mitchell Stokes]

I honestly think the mailing list is a better place to discuss this than
the forums. Why talk to users when it's the developers that you need to
convince? Also, while the license as it is works for the most part, the
confusion around it drives users away. Not only users, but we've lost BGE
devs (look at GameKit). I would be fine with a clear exception for just the
Blenderplayer. As it is right now, the GPL can still mess you up in a
couple of places:

Blend files: They are currently up to you to license, unless they are
embedded into the Blenderplayer executable (save as runtime). [0]

Python scripts: You can license them however you want, until you start
calling into C extension libraries (the second example here[1]). So, you
have to pretty much stick with pure Python scripts or open source
libraries, which might not be feasible if you need to access some sort of
hardware SDK.

So, in other words, you should be fine for the most part, but every once in
a while you hit a snag, and those snags can lead to confusion, and it's
that confusion that's hurting the BGE, not so much the license itself.

Furthermore, while we've had re-licensing talks in the past, they've
usually come down to, "it's unfeasible to get permission from everyone."
This discussion brings something different since we actually have an
example of an open source project being re-licensed even though they had to
get permission.

Cheers,
Mitchell

[0] http://www.blender.org/education-help/faq/gpl-for-artists/#c2130
[1] http://www.blender.org/education-help/faq/gpl-for-artists/#c2129

On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 12:22 PM, Thomas Dinges <blender at dingto.org> wrote:

> Hi,
> A friendly reminder that this mailing list is for active Blender
> developers to coordinate work, not Licence debates.
>
> I don't think there is much interest in a re-licence here, we had such
> topics in the past. As the BGE is too much integrated, Blender itself
> would need to be re-licenced too.
>
> Personally I am against a switch to LGPL , especially if the only reason
> for this is this "App Store" debate. So please, continue this topic on
> the blenderartists forum if you like but stop trying to convince us here
> that this is the only way and mandatory.
>
> Best regards,
> Thomas
>
> Am 01.12.2012 19:56, schrieb Sinan Hassani:
> > You can only link closed source code dynamically with LGPL. Most mobile
> > app stores require everything to be statically linked anyway, so LGPL is
> > not going to help. Your code effectively becomes GPL in the technical
> > sense. We want the LGPL for app stores because it has less restrictions
> > on distribution, see original post for why it works.
> >
> > You can also read the press release from VLC on why they went LGPL:
> >
> > Link: http://www.videolan.org/press/lgpl.html
> >
> > Part of the reason is for the VLC media player to be more multi-platform.
> >
> > PC stores allow for dynamic linking of code, so you can integrate
> > something like FMOD there using dynamic linking if you want, but you
> > still need to release source code for all the FMOD code you added to BGE
> > (i.e. code change and FMOD API calls). This is the case for this FMOD
> > example if BGE is GPL or LGPL.
> >
> > So we're asking for a license change only in certain cases of
> > distribution. We're asking only for a license change when BGE is given
> > to a third party repository for redistribution, in which case it would
> > be available under LGPL.
> >
> > I think the LGPL is the best choice here, given that BGE is so
> > integrated with Blender, going for a more liberal license would not
> > work. We need a license that is both open source and free software.
> >
> > Sinan
> >
> > On 12-12-01 10:28 AM, Antony Riakiotakis wrote:
> >> There's quite some difference between LGPL and GPL. LGPL allows the
> >> source to be linked to closed code. Some of the developers are
> >> actually not very friendly with this idea, not to mention being
> >> friendly with Apple when it comes to 'walled gardens', monopolies,
> >> patents etc. So combining the two, and proposing a licence change with
> >> an air of "someone has done it, you HAVE to do it too" and with MAYBE
> >> the promise of it then being allowed in the Apple store is not the
> >> best diplomatic move you could do.
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Bf-committers at blender.org
> > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>
>
> --
> Thomas Dinges
> Blender Developer, Artist and Musician
>
> www.dingto.org
>
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