What licenses should be used for our work?[url

[desertfox 2]

I haven't read all of it .. but modders have no right to tell anyone how to use their work. You can not "license" the mods you make for ArmA. If someone makes a mod, I can go ahead and modify it again and publish it under my name without even giving him credits. I'd be an ass when I did that but you couldn't do the slightest ( legal ) thing about it. The only instance who has a saying about how the mods may or may not be used is Bohemian.

Only thing I was not allowed to do, was, grab mods and try publishing them for commercial purposes.

Furthermore, the aspect of legally sueing a private person for disregarding your whatever worded EULA, is a very theoretical one. I could go on for hours which issues this might include. Ever tried to sue a person in a foreign country in a civil suit ? You end up paying 20.000 US$ before you will even have your first court hearing after 2-3 years.

Even a company like Mi*****ft gives a rats ass about how home users use the licenses. Microsoft has never sued a single private individual for using a not-licensed product.

[dmarkwick 261]

I haven't read all of it .. but modders have no right to tell anyone how to use their work. You can not "license" the mods you make for ArmA. If someone makes a mod, I can go ahead and modify it again and publish it under my name without even giving him credits.

Modders have the right to put in any conditions they please, if you disregard it, there might be no legal comeback but you are in violation, and thus rightfully shunned by the mod community

That's about the size of it really, it's as simple as that. The creator(s) can put any conditions they like on it. Just as other modders can use/steal/whatever part of it they like.

It's down to fair use, proper credit where due, and gentlemanly conduct all round. Most people are happy for their stuff to be used anywhere, as long as they get a mention.

Quite simple

[fardwark 0]

You're wrong. Any person who creates an original work automatically has all of the intellectual property rights for that work.

Even if you create a derived work (such as making new content for a game) you still have the intellectual property rights for the derived work.

Simply put, BIS have the intellectual property rights for the original ArmA content, we have the intellectual property rights for any new content we create for ArmA.

For example:

I write new code to define a new HMMWV, add some scripts etc. to make it cooler, but I use the model for the original BIS HMMWV. I hold the intellectual property rights for the new config and the new scripts I have written, BIS still (naturally) holds the intellectual property rights for the HMMWV.

Just because it's difficult to legally pursue intellectual property rights issues in international cases doesn't mean it's impossible. There are also several cases where open source licenses (notably, the GPL) have been defended and upheld by courts of law. And open source projects are by nature multi-national.

[NeMeSiS 11]

I haven't read all of it .. but modders have no right to tell anyone how to use their work. You can not "license" the mods you make for ArmA. If someone makes a mod, I can go ahead and modify it again and publish it under my name without even giving him credits. I'd be an ass when I did that but you couldn't do the slightest ( legal ) thing about it. The only instance who has a saying about how the mods may or may not be used is Bohemian.

tata

Quote[/b] ](Q:) If I create an addon using one of the tools provided free of charge by BIS who does the addon belong to?

(A:) Anything you create with our tools belongs to you entirely, you’re free to use it however you wish as long as you use it in a non-commercial way. You’re also free to allow someone else to use it or to refuse them permission to use it.

The only exception is if you wish to create something with our tools for use in a commercial venture, in that case you must contact BIS or BIA, or a company authorised to represent our rights in such matters to acquire a license.

And yeah, noone would sue you, but noone would host your addons and everyone would hate you

[fardwark 0]

I'm not sure that's applicable, since it refers to Operation Flashpoint. I'd like to see a similar Q&A thread but for ArmA before I'm willing to believe it.

[=jps=sgtrock 4]

Does this quote from the End User License Agreement for BI's Tools address it for you, fardwark? Granted, it's still for Operation Flashpoint. But at least it's the actual text of the license. A bit more authoritative IMO.

I can't find a similar page for ArmA on the Biki, unfortunately. Does anyone know if one exists?

Quote[/b] ]This legal document is an agreement between you, the end user, and BI Studio, for BI Studio's terrain editing tools, which includes computer software and associated media, electronic documentation, and any upgrades, modified versions, or updates of the software licensed to you by BI (Bohemia Interactive), (collectively "Software"). BI is willing to license the software to you only upon the condition that you accept all of the terms contained in this agreement

GRANT OF LICENSE A) BI grants to you a personal, nonexclusive license to make and use the Software for the purpose of designing, developing, testing, and producing non-commercial game content for PC CD-ROM game Operation Flashpoint provided that you are the only individual using said Software and provided that you do not modify or alter the Software. You may also make personal copies (either in hard copy or electronic form) of any electronic documents included with the Software only for your personal use. B) You acknowledge and agree that BI is not obligated to provide technical or other support of any kind for the Software. C) You acknowledge and agree that BI is providing you the Software free of charge in order to allow you creation of non-commercial game content for Operation Flashpoint only and you agree to not commercially exploit any game content you may create using the Software without BI’s prior written permission.

[dmarkwick 261]

Does this quote from the End User License Agreement for BI's Tools address it for you, fardwark? Granted, it's still for Operation Flashpoint. But at least it's the actual text of the license. A bit more authoritative IMO.

I can't find a similar page for ArmA on the Biki, unfortunately. Does anyone know if one exists?

Quote[/b] ]This legal document is an agreement between you, the end user, and BI Studio, for BI Studio's terrain editing tools, which includes computer software and associated media, electronic documentation, and any upgrades, modified versions, or updates of the software licensed to you by BI (Bohemia Interactive), (collectively "Software"). BI is willing to license the software to you only upon the condition that you accept all of the terms contained in this agreement

GRANT OF LICENSE A) BI grants to you a personal, nonexclusive license to make and use the Software for the purpose of designing, developing, testing, and producing non-commercial game content for PC CD-ROM game Operation Flashpoint provided that you are the only individual using said Software and provided that you do not modify or alter the Software. You may also make personal copies (either in hard copy or electronic form) of any electronic documents included with the Software only for your personal use. B) You acknowledge and agree that BI is not obligated to provide technical or other support of any kind for the Software. C) You acknowledge and agree that BI is providing you the Software free of charge in order to allow you creation of non-commercial game content for Operation Flashpoint only and you agree to not commercially exploit any game content you may create using the Software without BI’s prior written permission.

This is a EULA for BIS developed software, this discussion is about the addons, scripts etc made by users.

[=jps=sgtrock 4]

.. and so does one or two sentences well written in a readme.

Why is it either posted license or no license with you? Take a quick 256x256 TGA texture posted as an image on the forum....Does not a two sentence "terms of use" posted along with it satisfy your condition of ethical use when it is something so simple? Why does the author need to link to a posted license somewhere?

Well, it's not "either posted license or no license" with me. Unlike apparently DesertFox, I've been "Down the road and back" as my great uncle used to say. I know that I have no right to use someone else's material unless they grant me permission to do so. For example, I have no problem downloading a mission pack and using it on a server, so long as I don't have to provide downloading of any part of the pack to the players that might connect to my server.

If, however, I want to re-use someone's creation as part of a mission pack that I'm developing for release, I know that I need that person's permission. If I have to do that for a bunch of stuff, I can either ignore them completely (as DesertFox implies he would do) or do the right thing and find out what their wishes are.

If someone takes the time to write up a two line license, great! I'll do my best to follow it. However, it really doesn't take a whole lot more effort on the part of a creator to browse a couple of licenses and pick one that fits. So, why not?

On the subect of short licenses, how about the MIT license? It's not two lines, but it's still only three sentences:

Quote[/b] ]The MIT License

Copyright © <year> <copyright holders>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

You'll note that the entire conditional statement is only that the license be included with each copy of the software that might be distributed. The rest of the text is boilerplate disclaimer language to avoid liability issues.

Another example is the "by attribution" license from the Creative Commons site:

Quote[/b] ]

You are free:

* to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work

* to Remix — to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

* Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

* For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.

* Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.

* Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

Here's an example of a public domain license for a software project called ANTLR:

Quote[/b] ]ANTLR 2 License

We reserve no legal rights to the ANTLR--it is fully in the public domain. An individual or company may do whatever they wish with source code distributed with ANTLR or the code generated by ANTLR, including the incorporation of ANTLR, or its output, into commerical software.

We encourage users to develop software with ANTLR. However, we do ask that credit is given to us for developing ANTLR. By "credit", we mean that if you use ANTLR or incorporate any source code into one of your programs (commercial product, research project, or otherwise) that you acknowledge this fact somewhere in the documentation, research report, etc... If you like ANTLR and have developed a nice tool with the output, please mention that you developed it using ANTLR. In addition, we ask that the headers remain intact in our source code. As long as these guidelines are kept, we expect to continue enhancing this system and expect to make other tools available as they are completed.

You'll note that the ANTLR version 3 license went to the BSD one. The project team must have decided that they wanted a little more control of their software after all. I wonder what happened that generated that particular move? Anyhow, it also let them go with a well known, thoroughly tested license.

BTW, at one point early in the discussion Crash said:

Quote[/b] ]The MS license you downplay is actually less strict than GPL in the sense that it covers beyond the scope of just being "freeware". In fact, I use and create alot of products which are covered by that license and I am very happy with it. I have done comparisons of these long ago. GPL/GNU is only really useful for OSS. I feel that binding myself and everyone in the future of any project to a single license as being more "strict' than not. Alternatively, what you consider being strict, I consider good sense. What you consider "taken away" is the ability for those that come after to strip me of my ownership... if I am the author - nothing is "taken away".

I meant to address this statement much earlier, because it suggests a misunderstanding on Crash's part. Software that is developed using Microsoft's tools like Visual Studio does not fall under Microsoft's license because that code does not belong to Microsoft. It falls under whatever license the creator chooses. Just like pictures made using Photoshop don't fall under Adobe's license.

Now, Crash seems to be fine with Microsoft's EULA. I guess he objected to me calling it "onerous". Just for comparison to the licenses that I quoted above, here are some quotes from the Microsoft license that I linked to in my original post:

Quote[/b] ]GRANT OF LICENSE. Microsoft grants you the following rights provided that you comply with all terms and conditions of this EULA:

1.1 Installation and use. You may install, use, access, display and run one copy of the Software on a single computer, such as a workstation, terminal or other device ("Workstation Computer"). The Software may not be used by more than one processor at any one time on any single Workstation Computer.

Not so bad, right? Except that we are forced to buy XP Pro in order to legally run XP on a dual core AMD.

Quote[/b] ]1.2 Mandatory Activation. ...You may also need to reactivate the Software if you modify your computer hardware or alter the Software. There are technological measures in this Software that are designed to prevent unlicensed use of the Software.

Yuck.

Quote[/b] ]Windows Media Format Software Development Kit ("WMFSDK"). This EULA does not grant you any rights to use the WMFSDK components contained in the Software to develop a software application that uses Windows Media technology.

So much for Crash's notion about being able to develop what he wants. (Well, OK, only for multimedia products)

How about gaming?

Quote[/b] ]Internet Gaming/Update Features. If you choose to utilize the Internet gaming or update features within the Software, it is necessary to use certain computer system, hardware, and software information to implement the features. By using these features, you explicitly authorize Microsoft or its designated agent to access and utilize the necessary information for Internet gaming and/or updating purposes.

Nice to know that Microsoft needs to learn about my system just so I can use their gaming services! No wonder I've never felt any desire to play any Microsoft games.

Quote[/b] ]RESERVATION OF RIGHTS AND OWNERSHIP. Microsoft reserves all rights not expressly granted to you in this EULA.

...

TERMINATION. Without prejudice to any other rights, Microsoft may terminate this EULA if you fail to comply with the terms and conditions of this EULA. In such event, you must destroy all copies of the Software and all of its component parts.

<sarcasm>Yep, Microsoft licenses are "less strict" than open source licenses.</sarcasm>

Not exactly as generous to other developers as the others, is it? There's also a lot to that license that I skipped. I called it "onerous" for good reason.

Still, if that kind of license is what a creator wants to use, I believe wholeheartedly that we all have every obligation to follow their wishes. There are plenty of reasons that I don't allow any unlicensed software on my PCs.