GPL Policy

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ivanovic
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Re: GPL Policy

Post by ivanovic »

Aleksi wrote:
Well, lets say i like to have full control of what i do, and what i own. When i get paid, i'm ok for concessions. When i don't, then i like to do what i want with my creations.

And "rarely" doesn't mean "never". But, the actual "my music getting modified" doesn't bother me that much, its much more the copyright that i disapprove.
As I already asked before:
ivanovic wrote:Now it would be nice to get an explicit list of things that you as artists want.
Please make a list of what you would like to see so that you considered staying and contributing further work. What kind of protection against what do you want to have and need? This is an honest question, it is *not* rhetorical. Without knowing your needs it is impossible for us to find a license that will suite all of us.

So far I have seen nothing from you beside "No, this does not work!" but nothing like "I/We do need a), b) and c)".
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Re: GPL Policy

Post by Dave »

ivanovic wrote:
As I already asked before:
ivanovic wrote:Now it would be nice to get an explicit list of things that you as artists want.
Please make a list of what you would like to see so that you considered staying and contributing further work. What kind of protection against what do you want to have and need? This is an honest question, it is *not* rhetorical. Without knowing your needs it is impossible for us to find a license that will suite all of us.

So far I have seen nothing from you beside "No, this does not work!" but nothing like "I/We do need a), b) and c)".
Right. I would like to think we are not unreasonable people. If someone comes up with a comprehensive proposal for an alternative license for specific content, we will consider it.

I don't think you can expect that we will go running around pretending to be lawyers trying to come up with a license ourselves that handles all of the vague requirements presented here.

In fact, I have long felt that GPL may not be ideal for art, music, etc. However, I have not felt strongly enough about it to push for an alternative. If someone does feel strongly about it, then they are welcome to make a comprehensive proposal to the community that goes over all possible implications of an alternative approach. We will consider the proposal and make a decision.

I don't think anyone can just throw their arms up and say "this doesn't work for me! I'm out! Bye!" and then expect people to try to come up with an alternative license to cater to their needs.

David
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Jetrel
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Re: GPL Policy

Post by Jetrel »

Aleksi wrote:Well, lets say i like to have full control of what i do, and what i own. When i get paid, i'm ok for concessions. When i don't, then i like to do what i want with my creations.
Just to make sure everyone's on the same page - when you make something GPL, you keep the copyright on the thing as well. You can still do whatever you want with it - unlike when it's commissioned by someone. You still own it. You can still sell it.

The only difference is that you also allow other people to use it*.


:) Also, one major thing to remember, is only the version you put under the GPL is released. If you make your own improvements to something of yours, you don't have any obligation to release them. If you make a better version of a song, or if you want to reuse the melody and a few movements from one of your songs in a new song - it's all yours; no one else has any permission to use the new stuff you make from it.



* And you can't change your mind about this later, because if people could, there wouldn't be any point in having it in the first place - imagine a musician pulling his music from a ballet after all the choreography had been done. The director may as well abandon the whole thing, then. People need to be able to rely on the permission to use it, once it's been given, which is why the license is the way it is.
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Re: GPL Policy

Post by Boucman »

Jetryl wrote: If you make a better version of a song, or if you want to reuse the melody and a few movements from one of your songs in a new song - it's all yours; no one else has any permission to use the new stuff you make from it.
and if someone does a derivative job, it has to be GPLed too, so he too has to release it for everybody else... no "selling exclusive rights" of the derived work, except for you
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Aleksi
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Re: GPL Policy

Post by Aleksi »

Jetryl wrote:[Just to make sure everyone's on the same page - when you make something GPL, you keep the copyright on the thing as well. You can still do whatever you want with it - unlike when it's commissioned by someone. You still own it. You can still sell it.
Well what i am trying to explain in my bad english, is that i am registered at Sacem. My music is protected by them. I own the copyrights, but they protect me. GPL license does not, or not as well. This is my biggest concern. But if i deposit a piece under Sacem, i can't under GPL.
AI
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Re: GPL Policy

Post by AI »

Aleksi wrote:
Jetryl wrote:[Just to make sure everyone's on the same page - when you make something GPL, you keep the copyright on the thing as well. You can still do whatever you want with it - unlike when it's commissioned by someone. You still own it. You can still sell it.
Well what i am trying to explain in my bad english, is that i am registered at Sacem. My music is protected by them. I own the copyrights, but they protect me. GPL license does not, or not as well. This is my biggest concern. But if i deposit a piece under Sacem, i can't under GPL.
In other words, due to the exclusive license you give to Sacem, you cannot release your music under a license that is any more permissive than "I grant you the right to use this music, in unmodified form, for this particular work?"
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Aleksi
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Re: GPL Policy

Post by Aleksi »

AI wrote:In other words, due to the exclusive license you give to Sacem, you cannot release your music under a license that is any more permissive than "I grant you the right to use this music, in unmodified form, for this particular work?"
Exactly!
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Re: GPL Policy

Post by AI »

Well, then the Sacem 'protection' is fundamentally incompatible with permissive (free, open, whatever) licenses. It also reeks of MAFIAA practices, with the differences that as it's a non-profit union, most of the proceeds go back to the artists, though not necessarily to the ones that created the music.

I could still be wrong, but that sounds less and less likely now.
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Rhonda
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Re: GPL Policy

Post by Rhonda »

Aleksi wrote:
Jetryl wrote:[Just to make sure everyone's on the same page - when you make something GPL, you keep the copyright on the thing as well. You can still do whatever you want with it - unlike when it's commissioned by someone. You still own it. You can still sell it.
Well what i am trying to explain in my bad english, is that i am registered at Sacem. My music is protected by them. I own the copyrights, but they protect me. GPL license does not, or not as well. This is my biggest concern. But if i deposit a piece under Sacem, i can't under GPL.
From what I've been told about SACEM, your registration with them is a serious problem to wesnoth because it means that any work you do is automatically regéistered with them and that even though you still own copyright to it, you don't have rights to define distrubtion of it anymore, or rather am not allowed to put them under a free license anyway.

Aleksi, I want to make you aware of these issues with SACEM and their methodés of "protection":
Critiques of SACEM on French Wikipedia
Please judge yourself if this is really the kind of "protection" you are aiming for, especially the case of "Spectacle de fin d’année à l’école" which should make it clear that the author doesn't have much right to define how their work is used (frensh language only, unfortunately).

For wesnoth it means that SACEM does have the legal background to sue it for using music produced by you without notification to them. I seriously hope that I'm wrong here, but I fear that I'm not :/

One question, Aleksi: Were you registered with SACEM before you handed your music to wesnoth, or did you register after that?
Boucman
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Re: GPL Policy

Post by Boucman »

Rhonda, though what you just said is what's written in Wikipedia.fr I would like to have some "official SACEM paper" linked somewhere... it's very possible that any SACEM member is not allowed to give any music AT ALL to wesnoth, but this needs to be carfully checked.

that would seem really opressive to me, I'd like to make sure we're not "jumping to the gun


Aleksi, do you have any link to any SACEM page which would describe your rights WRT your creations ? I couldn't find any (I'm still looking though)
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Aleksi
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Re: GPL Policy

Post by Aleksi »

Rhonda wrote:From what I've been told about SACEM, your registration with them is a serious problem to wesnoth because it means that any work you do is automatically regéistered with them and that even though you still own copyright to it, you don't have rights to define distrubtion of it anymore, or rather am not allowed to put them under a free license anyway.
When you compose a music, you have to deposit it. You have to fill in a form, give the score or a CD and then they pu tin into they're database. I can choose not to do that if i wish.
Rhonda wrote:One question, Aleksi: Were you registered with SACEM before you handed your music to wesnoth, or did you register after that?
What i composed for Wesnoth until now has not been deposited to SACEM and was created before i was a member.
Anyway, i have to go there next week, i'll ask clarification on the matter.

For those interested: http://www.sacem.fr/ they have pages in English.
szopen
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Re: GPL Policy

Post by szopen »

This is an old thread; however, I have searched the wenosht archive and I think in this thread the points about the license policy were stated most clearly. I do not want to create a new thread and make a pointers to other discussion, since i think it is better that people can read all the arguments made before on the topic.

My main points are:
1) GPL is virtually unknown amongst artists and its use may lead to confusion amongst them

2) Most of Wesnoth art is replaced over the time, and transition to new license scheme can be made smooth my simply requiring that NEW content should be double-licensed

3) GPL is good for the code, but it leads to a lot of doubts about the art. I argue it's better to choose another license preserving the GPL spirit, but specifically created to the art.

I am not developer, I am just a creator of one campaign. I understand what are the points of the GPL. Before I start, I will give you one small example: when i was thinking about the re-release i came to the conclusion, that despite my best efforts, my campaign violated GPL terms. At least, I think. I have used Reiner's graphic, which have basically this license "do with them whatever you want, distribute it, modify it, __as long as you credit me__". This part __as long as you credit me__, at least I think so, made his license incompatible with GPL. I was using GPL license for at least ten years or more in different kind of works, and I thought i know what it means -- yet right now I am pretty sure I have violated it. Or am I?

Why I am writing it? Because I think GPL is not well suited to the art. You heard all the arguments against probably before, but I never saw in discussion this point: the GPL is long and seems many people does not read it. I requested one artists to license his work under GPL, and he said: "sure, go ahead, you may license it under GPL. I enjoy seeing that my work is being used by other people ___as long as they credit me and do not modify my work without my approval___.

GPL is widely known amongst developers, but almost unknown amongst the artists. Even those, who heard about this, as seen from the example above, have misconception about the license. Switching to other license such as CC-Attribution-share-alike would preserve all the advantages Jetryl and other enumarated, but at the same time this license is more and more known, allows to use a lot of art which is already licensed under this license without the need of explaining the differences to other people. Just look at the Aleksi example: how many artists contributing to Wesnoth really know, what GPL means? Go to the deviant-art, or any artists-forum and count how much work was contributed under GPL and how much under CC3.0.

The strongest arguments against I saw were that developers can't have multiple licenses and check whether they all are compatible; and that all art is GPLd, so it would require to askk all previous contributors to relicense their work under the new license. I think both arguments are moot. In first, you would have just two licenses: one for the code, one for the content. In second, a lot of art was replaced during the last four years. My impression, when looking at the wesnoth now, is in fact that almost everything was replaced. If you would have decision to use double-licensing in the transition period -- all new art have to be contributed at both GPL and CC3.0-SA -- then today you could switch to new license already. If you would now demand the art to be contributed with two licenses, then within next four years you could switch to new licensing scheme easily.

Finally, let me cite GPLv2:
"Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code"
"The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it. "

What is a preferred form of the music to making modifications to it? If a music is made in a tracker, does that mean a tracker module? Maybe separate waves for a mp3? What is a preferred form of the png? What if someone will demand from you all the .xcf's or .psd for all the images, which were contributed in the past? Ok, this is the weakest point of my argument, but anyway, why don't switch to licensing art under the scheme which will not raise such doubts?

EDIT: To explain my point with Reiner's tiles, and why claim "you must credit me" is not compatible with GPL. Several people claimed that GPL requires crediting original work. I read GPLv2 three times now, and I can't find where it is. There is clause that "ou must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change". In other words, I think, that GPL specifically allows ayone to take Jetryl's portraits, publish them on other sites with added few modifications and this is ok as long as they state "I have modified this portrait". They cannot claim it's their work not nbecause GPL, but because of author copyrights, so it would be enough to state in addition "it's not mine". I see nowhere the claim of linking to the previous work, or to credit original author. Therefore, stating "you must credit me" is additional requirement above GPL, and therefore would make it incompatible.

If you think this is nuts, they you also think I am right by saying that GPL is waay too long and complicated to be suitable for the art content.
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