ENIGMA Development Environment

Quote from: edsquare on April 26, 2014, 09:27:37 pm

Atached below three versions of the exception: 

Consider how a single word in the fairly simple wxWidgets exception to the LGPL could make things unclear

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The wxWindows Library Licence has been approved by the Open Source Initiative.

In August 2005, an ambiguity in Clause 2 was removed (replaced "the user's" with "your") and the version bumped to 3.1.

Writing an exception to the GPL is no small task.

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2. As a special exception, the copyright holders of this software give permission for additional uses of the text contained in this release of the software as licensed under the Enigma Engine License

Text? Do you mean the code? The GPL itself consumes whole paragraphs describing what source code is, and how bytecode is not considered source.
Just using the wrong word can lead to troubles.
This is the riskiest way you could attempt to solve the problem, if you ask me.

BTW libGDX, a free/libre game development framework that supports more platforms than Enigma or Studio will ever do, just reached v1.0.
The project started in 2009, and doesn't have many more stable developers than this project has, even though it receives many pull requests on GitHub.
...and it uses Apache 2.0 as its license
http://www.badlogicgames.com/wordpress/?p=3412

Is funny that you mention it, the wxWidgets license says exactly that (text), didn't noticed before, what do you propose it says?

For an additional permission on top of the GNU GPL with v3's mechanism to do this, you don't need to worry about approval by the FSF or OSI, because the GPL on its own can be used if someone wants to, and this license has been accepted by both the FSF and the OSI.

The only way you would need to worry about this is if you are actually modifying a license. Which is why the GPLv3+ plus additional permissions is a better choice.

By the way, "LGPL" did originally stand for "Library General Public License", and version 2.1 of the LGPL uses the word "library" rather than "program". The reason it was changed to "Lesser General Public License" is because the FSF didn't want people assuming that the LGPL should be used for all libraries; sometimes the GPL is strategically a better choice.

Well you may not need the permission of the OSI or the FSF but it would be great to have the exception checked by them, especially if it doesn't cost a dime!  I believe it's free as in free beer! 

That puts us back in legal muddy-water, because now our license isn't Open-Source approved, and may or may not actually hold water, legally. What constitutes similar/competing software, for example? It's possible we could pull from an existing legal definition of "competing," but only a lawyer would know that.

Isn't Open-Source approved? or FreeSoftware approved? They are not necessarily the same thing you know. :-)

Why do you say it isn't? As far as I can tell it only forbides you from taking enigma and use it in a closed source clone, not in a freesoftware/opensourced one.
 
You don't like similar/competing software? Fine lets change it for: any game making software

Or even better: any developement software.

or : Game Development software.

Also I bet it holds water but finally it's only a draft and therefore open to modification. The only way to know if it passes the FSF scrutiny is to submit it (Not that I think it's ready), and at the same time you would know if it holds water legally, since the FSF would not approve an exception that:

1.- Is not Free enough (This exception allows you to use enigma to develop games under whatever license you choose, therefore is more Free than the GPL even) :-)

2.- Is not legally sound.

My point is this: It's not cast in stone so lets think and modify it, you wont find a license that does exactly what you want, so lets take one close enough and add an exception to it.

It's possible to do basically the same thing, but not by modifying that license, at least not without permission. Ideally, you would use the mechanism that version 3 of the GPL gives to add exceptions (the one that the LGPLv3 uses to work).

The wxWidgets guys must have gotten permission from the FSF to make those license changes.

Compared to the GNU exceptions, the LGPL formulates more requirements to the linking exception: you must allow modification of the portions of the library you use and reverse engineering (of your program and the library) for debugging such modifications. But this is covered by the exception.

You make the exception and then submit it to the FSF for aproval, the license remains the same with an exception atached to it.

Since such exceptions have been aproved (not once or two times only), it stands to reason that an exception along the same lines should be aproved.

The GNU Classpath also has a linking exception allowing the development of privative software with statically linked libraries. There are many such exceptions, so we can use one or more as a template and modify it to our needs.

My draft is just that, a proposal for said exception, in order to stop arguin about it and start doing something; I used the wxWidgets as a template since they already did the legal legwork and enigma can therefore save the time, energy and money. If the developers agree in the draft's general idea I can happily make the modifications they deem necesary in order to have it ready so the developers team can submit it to the FSF for aproval.

I only wish to contribute something to enigma and, since I can't give money and my programming abilities are close to none...

Also every user would benefit by the legal certainty the exception provides, and it would deter the future/posible theft of the project's work in favor of a privative software.

Only one more point : The LGPL means Lesser GNU Public License, not Library license, therefore it can be used by any application. It has been used mostly for libraries because the GPL wasn't up to the task back then. The new version is a little different, yet didn't I read that the MAC people don't allow software using the GPL with exception into their stores? This could be why others use the LGPL and maybe enigma should too.

Although as I understand it the problem is for libraries/software that will be used to develop other software not for games, yet how would you develop games for their platform if they demand it be done in their platform or you can't access their stores?, you could of course not sell osx/ios versions or sell them through other parties, don't know if the users could buy/install them. That company is crazy!, I would never buy one of their machines, even if I had the money!

That's not how it works. The license is copyrighted; redistributing it is illegal unless you are given permission. You only have that permission if you don't change it.

Of course, if you get permission to distribute your modified license, then you can. But you can't do it without that permission.

Actually you can, or kind of:

The wxWindows Library Licence is essentially the L-GPL (Library General Public Licence), with an exception stating that derived works in binary form may be distributed on the user's own terms. This is a solution that satisfies those who wish to produce GPL'ed software using wxWidgets, and also those producing proprietary software.

Therefore you can publish the Enigma license, loosely based on the LGPL and wxWidgets licenses, the LGPL license is for everybody to use and even modify or add exeptions; and nobody can use it and then make it copyrighted to the extent where you can't use it.

Also as I said before, you won't use the wxwidgets license but as a template (mainly the exception) for the Enigma License, and if the wxwidgets team give me their blessings every other point is moot.

The clause preventing the modification is there to make sure that wxwidgets will continue to be freesoftware, and that nobody will distribute it with a modified license that allows them or a third party to close the source of the library.

Exactly what the enigma team is looking for, a license that allows the user to publish games under the licensing scheme of their liking and at the same time preventing (Or trying to) that someone can: take the engine, modify it, rebrand it and sell it under a closed source license.

Of course somebody could still try it, but if the enigma team gets an inkling they can take legal action against whoever tries to do so.

Also not only libraries are released under the LGPL.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License

http://wxwidgets.org/about/licence/

As I stated in the poll thread, this has been solved by others before:

http://www.wxwidgets.org/about/licence/

http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/licensing