Ashes of Apocalypse

[Envy123]

Oh crap, I almost forgot.

Some of my characters are straight from Jak and Daxter - Samos, Ashelin and Jak. You may need to replace those characters' names.

[psi29a]

Clearly using OpenCS instead of Bethesda's "Editor" is the solution going forward.

It's possible that those restrictions aren't enforceable, or that an exemption can be negotiated with Bethesda, or that Debian is happy to ignore the problem. But I think the matter deserves some thought and discussion.

Loriel

PS It has been clear for many years, but emphasised during the paid mods incident, that licensing of Elder Scrolls mods is a mess. Good luck with the attempts to tidy it up.

I agree with, we can discuss it further perhaps in another thread.

However, I stand by my above statements. If it really was a problem, then we would be contacted by Matt (Bethesda) anyway.

Copyright of all assets belong to their respective author and I'll respect that.

That being said, I'll honour CC-BY-NC-SA. Which is very generous! That just means that for DR2, it can go into Debian contrib, but not in main which is also OK. Packages in contrib won't be put on CD/DVD, so won't be sold.

So it looks like the situation is:
AoA is CC-BY-SA and its DR2 expansion is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Is that OK?

Right now, I'm busy weeding out the Bethesda assets in AoA. Once I have a list, I'll look for or create replacements.

AoA 1.2 will be fully OpenMW ready (bugs fixed, holes filled, etc.).
AoA 2.0 will be fully CC-BY-SA.

[Loriel]

So it looks like the situation is:
AoA is CC-BY-SA and its DR2 expansion is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Is that OK?

That looks good to me - I think you are more likely to get NC agreement from the DR2 contributors, and it avoids some of the difficulties with the CS restrictions.

It just leaves the problem of contacting the contributors and getting their agreement - I have regular contact with Emma, but not with any of the others, so can't offer much help there.

Loriel

[Envy123]

Clearly using OpenCS instead of Bethesda's "Editor" is the solution going forward.

It's possible that those restrictions aren't enforceable, or that an exemption can be negotiated with Bethesda, or that Debian is happy to ignore the problem. But I think the matter deserves some thought and discussion.

Loriel

PS It has been clear for many years, but emphasised during the paid mods incident, that licensing of Elder Scrolls mods is a mess. Good luck with the attempts to tidy it up.

I agree with, we can discuss it further perhaps in another thread.

However, I stand by my above statements. If it really was a problem, then we would be contacted by Matt (Bethesda) anyway.

Copyright of all assets belong to their respective author and I'll respect that.

That being said, I'll honour CC-BY-NC-SA. Which is very generous! That just means that for DR2, it can go into Debian contrib, but not in main which is also OK. Packages in contrib won't be put on CD/DVD, so won't be sold.

So it looks like the situation is:
AoA is CC-BY-SA and its DR2 expansion is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Is that OK?

Right now, I'm busy weeding out the Bethesda assets in AoA. Once I have a list, I'll look for or create replacements.

AoA 1.2 will be fully OpenMW ready (bugs fixed, holes filled, etc.).
AoA 2.0 will be fully CC-BY-SA.

Sounds good to me.

I'd prefer if DR2 is CC-BY-NC-SA in all honesty.

[psi29a]

I'd prefer if DR2 is CC-BY-NC-SA in all honesty.

Agreed. The question remains, does DR2 being CC-BY-NC-SA allow then for Bethesda's IP to be included or not? Per definition of their license?

On the AoA side of things, I've validated both 1.0 and 1.1:

Comparing md5sum of AoA version 1.0 to the contents Bethesda's BSA files.
Out of 4304 files, found 139 bethesda files.

Comparing md5sum of AoA version 1.1 to the contents Bethesda's BSA files.
Out of 194 files, found 0 bethesda files.

For a list of files, please read this:
https://github.com/Mindwerks/aoa/blob/m ... ion.output

These files either need to be replaced or dropped, before we can consider AoA to be CC-BY-SA.

Is there a way to validate if the files are even used in an ESM or ESP? Do NIF files contain dependencies on other files?

[Loriel]

The question remains, does DR2 being CC-BY-NC-SA allow then for Bethesda's IP to be included or not? Per definition of their license?

The answer isn't clear to me, but I believe probably not.

I can't find any explicit terms for using Bethesda material, but I think it's covered implicitly in this:

The Package contains material for use with Bethesda Softworks' editor Product, titled The Elder Scrolls Construction Set(tm) (the "Editor") that enables You to create new or customized levels or otherwise adjust Your experience in using Product(s) provided to You in the Package. All uses of the Editor and any materials created using the Editor (the "New Materials") are for Your own personal, non-commercial use solely in connection with the applicable Product(s), subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

In other words, it appears that the same "New Materials" restrictions apply to re-using Bethesda materials or creating your own (which doesn't appear sensible to me).

CC-BY-NC-SA would solve the "No commercial use" problem, but incorporating Bethesda materials in AOA would probably fall foul of

You are only permitted to distribute the New Materials, without charge (i.e., on a strictly non-commercial basis), to other authorized users who have purchased the Product, solely for use with such users' own authorized copies of such Product and in accordance with and subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement and all applicable laws.

This appears to restrict the use of Bethesda Morrowind material (and anything else created in the Construction Set) to Morrowind and/or its expansions, and to forbid use on OpenMW.

According to the thread at http://www.gamesas.com/oblivion-books-m ... 34412.html Bethesda have enforced this in the past - namely preventing use of Oblivion books in Morrowind.

Loriel

[Envy123]

There's a difference between using Bethesda assets for the same game and porting it to another.

Exactly why Morroblivion and Skywind are only on their respective site.

But I still think that the assets should be replaced. I only used Beth's assets because I worked on DR2 all by myself, with no artist to make new meshes for the mod.

[psi29a]

To be clear, DR2 is currently out-of-scope for me. We should split that off into an another thread, as that has a ton of work before it would be free of Bethesda's IP. In addition to that, you would have to contact all the people who worked on DR2 to ask their permission to CC-BY-NC-SA their contribution.

As such, I would say that we need to be careful with AoA and DR2. While related, one is not the other. I don't wish there to be any confusion.

Right now I'm only busy with AoA 1.0 and 1.1 which currently has 139 files that are Bethesda's IP. Once those are replaced or dropped, then is AoA out of Bethesda's scope to enforce anything. At that point, we can make an initial release as fully being CC-BY-SA.

At that point, it would be ready for more "world building".

You can follow my work here:
https://github.com/Mindwerks/aoa

[Envy123]

To be clear, DR2 is currently out-of-scope for me. We should split that off into an another thread, as that has a ton of work before it would be free of Bethesda's IP. In addition to that, you would have to contact all the people who worked on DR2 to ask their permission to CC-BY-NC-SA their contribution.

As such, I would say that we need to be careful with AoA and DR2. While related, one is not the other. I don't wish there to be any confusion.

Right now I'm only busy with AoA 1.0 and 1.1 which currently has 139 files that are Bethesda's IP. Once those are replaced or dropped, then is AoA out of Bethesda's scope to enforce anything. At that point, we can make an initial release as fully being CC-BY-SA.

At that point, it would be ready for more "world building".

You can follow my work here:
https://github.com/Mindwerks/aoa

Agreed.

DR2 needs a dedicated team full of artists and world builders for it to be CC-BY-NC-SA, and for it to only be in its current state. The stories are disconnected, the world building isn't good and there's a bad mish-mash of Bethesda's IP and AOA. Basically, DR2 is such a big mess that I'd rather a team expands on AOA instead.

Trust me when I say this from the point of view of the creator - I have good memories of DR2 but past the rose-tinted glasses that I wear when playing it, I see that most of it is not worth salvaging.

However, there is a certain number of side quests with very minor characters which I would gladly license under CC-BY-SA because the characters belong to Travis and I have no use for those characters even if they were mine. Those could be put into AOA without a hitch. Some quests, though, need modifications to work with AOA. (but that could be a problem in the case that some people would play both under OpenMW...)

[Okulo]

Just for the upcoming newspost, what's the full name of DR2?