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Licence we are using for graphics.

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:04 pm
by miu
Though I mentioned this in general guidelines, I think it is worth of topic of its own.

Currently we are using Creatice Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence for all graphics in FreeOrion.

Shortly: people are free to copy, modify and make commercial products based on graphics used in FreeOrion but we have to be credited and they have to share their products in similar way.

I hope you all can agree with this. You cannot submit artwork for freeorion without accepting this.

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 11:50 pm
by Extremepumpkin
Good. Generally what I was going to allow you to do with my art (should you use it). Glad to know we have a licence set in "stone"

Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2005 4:32 am
by leiavoia
I read up a bit on the license and have a question:

If i make a commercial work using FreeOrion art assets, can i distribute the work without publishing the rest of it under the CC license as well? For instance, if i create SomeGame and use a few of the FO graphics in it, do i have to publish all of SomeGame's graphics under the CC license? Do i have to keep the FO graphics used in the game separate from the game's native graphics?

Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2005 7:32 am
by Tyreth
My understanding is that you would need to include the FreeOrion art with the product under the same license, but other artwork of your own would not be required to be released under the same license.

But I couldn't say for sure, sorry.

Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 3:12 am
by Tyreth
Note to artists: We will be using the 2.5 version of this license, not the 2.0. If you have an issue with your artwork being included under the new license please let us know. The main differences are listed below (courtesy of Yoghurt):

Code: Select all

 *4. Restrictions.*The license granted in Section 3 above is expressly
 made subject to and limited by the following restrictions:

    a. You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
       publicly digitally perform the Work only under the terms of this
       License, and You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource
       Identifier for, this License with every copy or phonorecord of the
       Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
       publicly digitally perform. You may not offer or impose any terms
       on the Work that alter or restrict the terms of this License or
       the recipients' exercise of the rights granted hereunder. You may
       not sublicense the Work. You must keep intact all notices that
       refer to this License and to the disclaimer of warranties. You may
       not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly
       digitally perform the Work with any technological measures that
       control access or use of the Work in a manner inconsistent with
       the terms of this License Agreement. The above applies to the Work
       as incorporated in a Collective Work, but this does not require
       the Collective Work apart from the Work itself to be made subject
       to the terms of this License. If You create a Collective Work,
       upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable,

-      remove from the Collective Work any reference to such Licensor or
-      the Original Author, as requested. If You create a Derivative
-      Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent
-      practicable, remove from the Derivative Work any reference to such
-      Licensor or the Original Author, as requested.

+      remove from the Collective Work any credit as required by clause
+      4(c), as requested. If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice
+      from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from
+      the Derivative Work any credit as required by clause 4(c), as
+      requested.

    c. If you distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly
       digitally perform the Work or any Derivative Works or Collective
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-      give the Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means
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+      provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i)
+      the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if
+      supplied, and/or (ii) if the Original Author and/or Licensor
+      designate another party or parties (e.g. a sponsor institute,
+      publishing entity, journal) for attribution in Licensor's
+      copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means,
+      the name of such party or parties; the title of the Work if
+      supplied; to the extent reasonably practicable, the Uniform
+      Resource Identifier, if any, that Licensor specifies to be

       associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the
       copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and in the
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       Derivative Work or Collective Work, at a minimum such credit will
       appear where any other comparable authorship credit appears and in
       a manner at least as prominent as such other comparable authorship
       credit.

Re: Licence we are using for graphics.

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 5:50 pm
by tzlaine
This was posted to the freeorion-programmers list. If no one objects, I'm going to do as Ender suggests in a week or so.
Hello, developers. As some of you may know, I am maintaining the Debian
package for FreeOrion.

A couple of weeks ago I finally uploaded a package to the Debian archive, and
the FTPmasters rejected it due to the license that govern the artwork and
sounds (CC Attribution-Share-Alike 2.5) being 'non-free'. I investigated the
issue and this is my summary and petition.


It seems that Debian raised some concerns time ago about the CC 2.0 and 2.5
licences, some of them summarized in this article:

http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.html

Basically, the debian-legal team evaluated all the licenses and found
problems. Those concerns made CC-licences < v3.0 non-compliant with the DFSG
(Debian Free Software Guidelines), that you can get in

http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

The key issues were:

* A creator could request that downstream distributors remove all
references to him or herself.
* Requirements for attribution were too vague.
* The anti-DRM clause was too broad.
* The restrictions on use of the trademark "Creative Commons" were too
strict.

In fact, the discussions with MIT and Debian were the seed for version 3.0 of
licenses. In February of 2007, Creative Commons finally published the CC
licenses v3.0, that basically addressed almost all the problems. You can
find a summary of what the changes are in:

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7249

In particular, the Debian issue is explained in a long writing:

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Version_3#Debian

The debian-legal team found almost acceptable the new license (save for some
DRM-related issues):

http://evan.prodromou.name/Debian_Creat ... oup_report

Debian would prefer a “parallel distribution language” to allow the release
of CC-licensed works under DRM by licensees on certain conditions, but this
hasn't been included in the current set of licenses.

Oh, and I have checked with the Debian FTPmasters that we are currently
accepting CC-SA v3.0 as a free license.


By all the above, I beg you to change the license of FreeOrion's art and
sounds from CC-SA 2.5 to CC-SA v3.0. The main advantages for me are:

- Some obscure points from the license have been really clarified.
- The license has been removed of its U.S.A. roots and made a generic
(namely 'unported') license, in order to adequate to every jurisdiction.
- Maybe in Debian we are quite strict about what we include inside, but I
think that is a problem you will have to face sooner or later.
- Inclusion of FreeOrion in Debian is a really good thing, and we should work
towards that. I have seen many times how a broad userbase brings new blood
and developers to a project, or even simply patches for this and that.

I have seen that you made a switch from v2.0 to v2.5 not much time ago. I
would like to propose another change to v3.0, if the artwork team, sounds
team and the project leader have no problem in it.

Sincerely,


Ender.
--
Network engineer
Debian Developer

Re: Licence we are using for graphics.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 4:04 am
by eleazar
Sounds fine to me.

Re: Licence we are using for graphics.

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 12:45 pm
by Tyreth
Go for it.

Re: Licence we are using for graphics.

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:14 pm
by Jo-Con-El
I will take that for a thumbs-up, as I was waiting to take a snapshot from the SVN after the license change.

Thank you very much for your support,


Ender.

Re: Licence we are using for graphics.

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:31 am
by Jo-Con-El
Hello there. It's been some time since I said I would take a SVN snapshot. Now I had the time to do it and I've seen that you have not modified default/COPYING, could you please do it? I am going to modify it in my local copy, but it must be in the upstream repository.

Many thanks,


Ender.

Re: Licence we are using for graphics.

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:21 am
by pd
Done.

Re: Licence we are using for graphics.

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:27 am
by Geoff the Medio
pd wrote:Done.
You only changed the name and URL, but not the actual text of the licence. I'll fix it.

Re: Licence we are using for graphics.

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:36 am
by pd
:)

I thought it's just the small part at the top(hence the link) and the rest belongs to the GNU stuff. Time for bed, I guess.

Re: Licence we are using for graphics.

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:44 am
by Geoff the Medio
pd wrote::)

I thought it's just the small part at the top(hence the link) and the rest belongs to the GNU stuff. Time for bed, I guess.
There's a link for the GPL as well. We use both licences, so have the text of both in the COPYING file.

Re: Licence we are using for graphics.

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:52 am
by Jo-Con-El
Thanks for the fast reply, Geoff!

I am uploading just now Debian packages for libgigi0 and freeorion to http://ftp.es.debian.org/~ender, in case someone wants to test them.

Regards,


Ender.