Licensing, the ultimatum

[Josh @ Dreamland]

If LGPL ENIGMA is not a separable piece of your application, you are breaking the license. As long as LGPL ENIGMA code is separate from the proprietary bits of your engine, you can market our free, continually updated code with your paid, proprietary, potentially malicious extensions that your users would come to rely on.

It is our job to ensure future users CAN choose their own license, and we would like to do so without allowing forks of ENIGMA to leverage proprietary extensions to "trap" users into their proprietary version. The LGPL accomplishes exactly zero of these two goals.

[lapingvino]

There is a license out there under the name LGPL with Classpath-exception, I think you would like to model it like that: the goal of that exception is exactly what you want to achieve, I believe. Maybe you can even try to go for a kind of GPL with exception. You would have to draft it first and let people going over applicable code agree with it though, depending on how many third-party code is involved in the compiled-together code.

[Josh @ Dreamland]

I've read over the classpath exception. I even forged our own exception based off of it, inspired by another derivative of it someone was using in their library. Classpath itself was a little bare, so we focused on the augmented versions (mine and the one I referenced). People found issue with clauses in the two of them, such as the inability to create libraries using that library. TGMG argued that would be problematic on Android, where all apps are libraries. There was also difficulty defining what a "related program" is. We want to allow this special linking for games, not game engines. Game engines should only be able to preserve our license or switch to GPL. It's hard to write the legalese for these caveats, which is why I'm involving lawyers.

[Rezolyze]

Josh: Any updates concerning this official request for help? How long did it take for a response the last time you requested licensing advice?

[Josh @ Dreamland]

I haven't heard back from them, which isn't really indicative of anything. I sent the email out June 1. Their system greeted me and gave the usual disclaimers on June 2. Last time I contacted them, I wrote them on July 1 and received a human reply Friday, September 13. The reply was very generic, however; I believe I shared it or the tone of it here at some point. It was not very inviting nor encouraging, which is why I opted to write them again. The fact that it's taking longer this time is probably a good thing.

[Darkstar2]

You are overly optimistic Josh.

It is obvious you've just been brushed off.  I know that there is the saying no news good news, but in this case their lack of interest or response is indicative.  I honestly don't think they give two shits about this project or your situation.  I've dealt with people like that before, don't hold your breath on that one, you are not likely to hear from them.

Your best bet is to keep in contact and pushing.....

no actually your best bet is to pay someone $500/hour for this sort of thing.

[Josh @ Dreamland]

I'm starting to think you're right. We're going to hit the half-year mark in short order without a reply. Even for free help, that's pretty abysmal.

[Darkstar2]

I'm starting to think you're right. We're going to hit the half-year mark in short order without a reply. Even for free help, that's pretty abysmal.

No kidding - They probably read the first words and tossed it in the bin

Some people have no netiquette though.  You'd think the least they could do is send a reply - how hard is it to say "we don't give a crap about your project and we are not interested" or "we cannot assist you".
Unless your e-mail got sent to their spam folder....  But hey, I'm a crowd sourcing contributor and I had to wait 2 whole fucking years for a company to fix their damn mistakes, so yeah, anything's possible.

Cheers.

[Josh @ Dreamland]

I doubt they went that far, but it's possible that since I ignored them last time due to their (still very late) but quite hasty negativity, they decided not to bother this time. Or there's a problem with the way GMail does quoting, because I had to agree to something their system sends out automatically. I'm going to investigate that, now.

[Rezolyze]

Or there's a problem with the way GMail does quoting, because I had to agree to something their system sends out automatically. I'm going to investigate that, now.

Any idea if something went wrong between Gmail and their automated system?

As for Darkstar2's pessimism, I think it's still too early to assume that they won't respond. It's been almost four months of waiting, but I wouldn't worry about it until the wait has been six months or more. They may be backed up with more requests than they were the last time.

I doubt they will be able to suggest a license that meets all your requirements any more than the people here can suggest one. However, waiting a couple more months to find out shouldn't hurt anything.

[Josh @ Dreamland]

I can't find any evidence of that from GMail, and I received no response when I asked on their IRC. I'm afraid I'll have to give up on them and ask someone else. So they basically have as long as it takes me to do that to zip us a reply.

[Darkstar2]

I can't find any evidence of that from GMail, and I received no response when I asked on their IRC. I'm afraid I'll have to give up on them and ask someone else. So they basically have as long as it takes me to do that to zip us a reply.

I agree with that 100%.  Normally if you are backed up you get a form reply at least acknowledging that they received your request and will get it eventually, but absolutely no response whatsoever, that is not too professional.  I think it will be a long shot if Josh gets a reply.

[rodneylives]

Hey, just browsing around, figured I'd ask --

I'm having difficulty seeing exactly what the situation is.  What is the outside GPL-licensed software that Enigma includes?  Is it a GNU compiler runtime?  If so, what do closed source projects that use those compilers do in this situation?

[Josh @ Dreamland]

The problem is that ENIGMA's original license is GPL, Rodney; we can change it if we like, but the GPL offers us (ENIGMA developers) a degree of protection that other licenses do not. I'm trying to find a license that protects us as while allowing users to close-source their games.

[Josh @ Dreamland]

I should point out that I got a reply from the SFLC about a week ago. It wasn't everything we'd hoped for in a reply, but it was something. I emailed back promptly thereafter and am now waiting for another reply.

Worst-case scenario, Google apparently provides employees with a number of legal perks, which includes quick access to lawyers for a nominal fee, and free access to lawyers for general consulting (which might at least point me in the direction of someone who can help). Not sure what it'll come down to, but most of you are remaining patient, so at least we have that.