xarn wrote:2. it's not "free"
It's incompatible with most other open source licenses. You can't even link to it freely.
Xarn, you are aus Deutschland, ja? Isn't it forbidden to wear the Swastika in your contry? At least it is here in Sweden. Now, does that make democracy less free, or make the society less democratical? Indeed, it does.
And it does so for a reason: The idea is that we need some kind of restrictions in order to safeguard the liberties we want to enjoy. That's what GPL tries to do.
The only non-freedom the GPL has associated with it is that it forces you to keep it free. I don't see that as a paradox at all or as something that makes it "less free" in a meaningful sense. Of course, for somebody that just wants to exploit something that is using the GPL the GPL will not be "free enough" to be exploited. So what? GPL was designed to
not be exploited. It isn't a public domain license, or a copyright license. It is a copyleft one, designed for that purpose alone and to fill a void that would be there were it not for it.
This reminds me of the FreeBSD operating system (free and open source as well) which had to rewrite loads of linux tools in because their license was different than GPL.
Yeah,
their license. Nobody put a gun to their head telling them to use stuff they shouldn't, or to use a license that didn't work with GPL. Apparently they wanted to do it the way they did (with the risk for writing something stupid, I'm not well informed about that particular case).
3. it has a virus like nature
GPL can use most of the other open source code lying around ...however, almost none can use GPL. In order to do it, they have to convert themeselves to GPL.
GPL doesn't use anything. The users do. And no license can force a user to mix code of one license with code of another.
If licenses are incompatible then surely they would be so
both ways, and not just one way as you suggest. Or have I missed out something obvious here? *thinking but getting confused*
Describing GPL as a virus is just filling it with negative connotations. It's like
terrorist << soldier >> freedom fighter ....how you describe it says more about your own view and relation to the object at hand than the actual object.
The only way something can be guaranteed to be
copyleft is for it to have the so called viral nature you menton. It is not a problem for a copyleft license. It is a feature. It is maybe also what actually makes it copyleft to begin with. To me it sounds like you have an issue with copyleft concepts, more than the GPL itself. Keep in mind that advocating a liberal license is not the same as advocating the most unrestricted license there is (since that would always be PD, CC0).
As for the art, I actually always wondered what the sense is to license it under "GPL". I mean, GPL is about code, about the right of linking, binding, modification, etc...
I find it extremely weird to apply it to images. Actually, even the official GNU GPL site indicates that art should be licensed with an according license ...because GPL doesn't make sense on art.
1. Our assets from BfW are using GPL license, and we can't legally re-license them. Should you manage to get the permission form artists I'm all ears though, be my guest.
2. I agree that GPL isn't an ideal choice, but I honestly don't know of a better license that is
copyleft and more suited for art/game resources. If you know of a license that is, please show it to me and I will consider dual-licensing
our original art.
3. It says in the GPL it is possible to license non-code. That's not an issue, unless somebody makes it into one. Making it into one is however fairly easy, hence my answer in #2 above.
That said, if I interpret using an image as linking, then my software is currently guilty of GPL license infractions. Crazy world, isn't it?
...but a sub-licensed copy would not ...or perhaps a court would not recognize GPL as a valid license for a
Yes, I'd consider the linking as infractions, as linking would circumvent the whole point with releasing the art using a copyleft license to begin with. At least my point, which is to insure that whatever is using our shit will be freely available to the world in the same way that our shit is. As simple as that.