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Re: Some questions about OpenMW!

Posted: 21 Dec 2013, 09:57
by Br0ken
werdanith wrote: If you take OpenMW, make changes to the source code, compile it and ship it with your game assets without making the changes available then yes you are breaking the license.
As I thought.
GPL is good choice for engine reimplementation, but not suitable for further development of OpenMW as game engine. Moreover, almost all open-source game engines uses permissive licences (Irrlicht, Panda3D, jMonkeyEngine, Torque3D, Nebula Device) or LGPL (Delta3D, Crystal Space).
It would be necessary to think about changing the license in future, after OpenMW 1.0.

Re: Some questions about OpenMW!

Posted: 21 Dec 2013, 10:14
by werdanith
The main reason that I can see, that commercial game companies do not use open source game engines is that the best engines tend to be proprietary since their development is funded by a company, and I don't see how changing the licensing of OpenMW would automatically make it a better engine.

There's plenty of commercial games with open source game engines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... ource_code

Re: Some questions about OpenMW!

Posted: 21 Dec 2013, 10:21
by sirherrbatka
Changing license of OpenMW is almost impossible. Try to convince all guys that contributed already.

Re: Some questions about OpenMW!

Posted: 21 Dec 2013, 11:03
by Br0ken
werdanith wrote:I don't see how changing the licensing of OpenMW would automatically make it a better engine.

There's plenty of commercial games with open source game engines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... ource_code
GPL for game engine reduces the number of users and limits the potential for development.

This is list of "proprietary developed games, later opened under varying licenses". Сompanies are using GPL to make sure that nobody will be able to use their code for commercial purposes.
sirherrbatka wrote:Changing license of OpenMW is almost impossible. Try to convince all guys that contributed already.
I remember several open-source projects that change a license. Of course there are some difficulties, but later it will be much more complicated. And I think that unlikely someone would be against this.

Re: Some questions about OpenMW!

Posted: 21 Dec 2013, 11:33
by werdanith
The intention of the OpenMW team is to make an open source engine for Morrowind or other similar community-driven total conversions. Now if someone can within legal boundaries use it to make a commercial game that's great for them, but we are not going to rearrange our effort to facilitate it.

Getting money involved with the core development in any way would significantly complicate matters both legally and with regards to the relationship between team members. Arguably we're already in a gray area from a legal perspective.

Re: Some questions about OpenMW!

Posted: 21 Dec 2013, 11:34
by sirherrbatka
It was already discussed.

Some open source project require programmers to give away the copyrights for the code they have written (for instance MIR does that and canonical is hated because of that, also open office). We are not doing this, and we are one of projects with largest number of programmers that comitted code.

There is a lot of effort required, and I don't see benefits. However, if somebody will convince all guys that sended code to relicense into the LGPL we may start discussing this topic again.

Also don't forget that OpenMW is kinda on a thin ice, We don't know how Bethesda would react for commercial, closed source projects based on it.

Re: Some questions about OpenMW!

Posted: 21 Dec 2013, 12:49
by wheybags
I for one would not release copyright to have it switched to lgpl.

Re: Some questions about OpenMW!

Posted: 21 Dec 2013, 14:02
by potatoesmaster
Most game engines exist only as bases for games. A permissive license allow them to be used in a variety of projects, including closed-source ones.

OpenMW is not a general-purpose engine. IMHO, building on it to make something different is sub-optimal, therefore unlikely to happen.

I can't see any benefit in switching to a non-copyleft license.

Re: Some questions about OpenMW!

Posted: 21 Dec 2013, 16:21
by jvoisin
GPL for game engine reduces the number of users and limits the potential for development.
This is bullshit.

Re: Some questions about OpenMW!

Posted: 21 Dec 2013, 18:28
by maqifrnswa
Br0ken wrote: GPL for game engine reduces the number of users and limits the potential for development.
Could you explain this? How, exactly, would development be improved if people could keep their contributions (or linking to code) closed-source?