[Bf-committers] Can BGE be relicensed?

[Tom M]

We could bring back the option of the blender license.  That would
allow closed source GE binaries when needed and distribution on
platforms that require that the binary be closed/non GPLed.  Thus only
the BF would be able to create the closed binaries and/or those who
get an explicit license.

That would probably be the option of least pain since it would reduce
the number of developers that would need to be contacted (since it
would only be the individuals who commited code after the Blender
custom license option was removed).

A second issue is that code ownership isn't solely that of the BF and
contributors - technically the original dual licensed code from when
blender went open source - the NaN shareholders still have some sort
of legal rights.  So any other licensing changes other the those
transformations allowed under the GPLv2 or the original Blender
license could be quite headache inducing.

There is also the question of external libraries - some of the
libraries we use are GPL only, not sure what dependencies the GE has
on them directly or indirectly, but likely some replacements would
need to be found.

LetterRip