GPL Policy

[TimothyP]

Okay. Well, if I'm not allowed to pull my pieces out, I guess I'll just cut my losses, hope no one does anything with my music, and stop composing for Wesnoth. It's a bummer really, I like this team, and I really like composing for the game. We made some great tunes for Wesnoth. But I don't want people messing with my music. It just isn't right, at least not without permission or copyright expiration. Music is designed to be what the composer intends it to be.

Does anyone else agree? Or do the rest of the composers feel fine putting their works on here to be used as anyone desires?

[Dave]

Okay. Well, if I'm not allowed to pull my pieces out, I guess I'll just cut my losses, hope no one does anything with my music, and stop composing for Wesnoth. It's a bummer really, I like this team, and I really like composing for the game. We made some great tunes for Wesnoth. But I don't want people messing with my music. It just isn't right, at least not without permission or copyright expiration. Music is designed to be what the composer intends it to be.

I could say the same thing about my code. Why for music, and not for code?

We have consistently had this policy for ALL kinds of contents from the very beginning of Wesnoth.

David

[Jozrael]

Just as a note Tim, Wesnoth isn't about to take your music and mangle it. But it means that some other game, especially one under the GPL, can take your music, modify it very slightly (or not at all, or a TON) and put it in their game without so much as notifying you. And just so you know, I appreciate all you've done for Wesnoth. Wesnoth is a form of volunteering I suppose, because you're giving away your work for free. You can still go and make money on any work you do, but you're also giving the exclusive rights to it away to society in general. It's a tough choice.

[z9484]

We have consistently had this policy for ALL kinds of contents from the very beginning of Wesnoth.

Thats one of the reasons why I'm so impressed with Wesnoth. It's commitment to freedom. It really benefits the whole community. Too many free projects these days are mixing lots of licensing which make it a lot harder too share the excellent work done with more people in different ways.

One of the ways I look at free software is that yes someone is free to change and fork your code. But If you are a good programmer, artist, musician, or whatever; people will always come back to you for the real deal.

[TimothyP]

I could say the same thing about my code. Why for music, and not for code?

We have consistently had this policy for ALL kinds of contents from the very beginning of Wesnoth.

David

It's my own fault then. I just never took time to understand what I was getting into when I signed up. I had no idea that Wesnoth's license functioned as it did. So, there you go - you guys got two "open source" tracks out of me during the time that I was blind to the reality of the situation. If anyone plans to do anything with my music, please tell me first. The pieces I did for Wesnoth are like my musical children, never intended to be modded or stolen from. Just because I gave them up as GPL pieces unknowingly doesn't mean I'm cool with it, as I've made clear. It's been fun, team.

[West]

Does anyone else agree? Or do the rest of the composers feel fine putting their works on here to be used as anyone desires?

I have no problem with my music being used in other GPL projects. As for modifications... well, if someone beat-slices a tune to bits and makes a hip hop song out of it, or runs it through an high-gain amp sim... I will still be credited as the original author (right?). And GPL dictates -- if I'm not mistaken -- that when distributing modified material, one must make sure to provide a link to where the unmodified "source" can be found. As you can see I'm not perfectly clear on how this works, but if it works like I think it does, I'm fine with it. I had some qualms about it in the past, but I have given it some thought since then.

Now, as for handing out the "source" of the music, as in midi/project files -- no I wouldn't do that.

[ivanovic]

Does anyone else agree? Or do the rest of the composers feel fine putting their works on here to be used as anyone desires?

I have no problem with my music being used in other GPL projects. As for modifications... well, if someone beat-slices a tune to bits and makes a hip hop song out of it, or runs it through an high-gain amp sim... I will still be credited as the original author (right?). And GPL dictates -- if I'm not mistaken -- that when distributing modified material, one must make sure to provide a link to where the unmodified "source" can be found. As you can see I'm not perfectly clear on how this works, but if it works like I think it does, I'm fine with it. I had some qualms about it in the past, but I have given it some thought since then.

Basically that is correct. That is: when someone else uses GPL work they have to credit the original creator. That is eg Valve was using DosBox as basis for bringing some older games via steam to recent users. At the beginning they "forgot" to praise the original authors in their credits. They threated with a law suite and are now (correctly and following the license) credited for their work.

This also counts for parts taken from other places. You have to acknowledge the original creator by either stating where you took things from (as in "from project XYZ") or explicitly state the artists doing the work.

For general usage you do not *have* to ask if you are allowed to though it is common to ask. This is just general behavior but the license does not enforce it. The reason for this is simple: it might not be possible anymore to ask since the author might be completely gone.

Now, as for handing out the "source" of the music, as in midi/project files -- no I wouldn't do that.

Hehe, yeah, a difficult part. That is: are the midi/project files really enough to definitely reproduce what you created? The sound samples and such would be needed, too. We already had a *long* discussion about stuff like this basically ending with "man, even with those 'source' files it is not really possible to recreate what I have, you would need my computer with all stuff on it for it". So with other words we decided on defining the resulting music pieces as the source files.

That is with the license GPL other might take those music files and eg cut them in half and just use the first half. By the license it is allowed. Though no one knows how likely it is that someone will do so.

I will point ESR to this thread since he is probably the one from out team with most experience regarding to licensing and what we could/should do. I hope he has some good insight...

[West]

Hey, the old thread is still around if anyone is interested. I thought it was lost in the crash but apparently it was longer ago than I thought.

[West]

I've been looking at the various Creative Commons licenses.

Letting others modify the music is obviously out of the question (or?), and thus we need a license that doesn't allow modifications. Okay. That leaves us only two CC choices as far as I can see: No Derivatives (by-nd), and Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd).

Which leads us to the problem of commercial use.

I have a feeling that most composers will not be okay with commercial use of their music. Correct me if I'm wrong. However... if we don't agree to commercial use, won't that clash with the GPL? Meaning, if the music is not allowed to be used commercially but everything else is (in accordance with the GPL), won't that mean problems with certain Linux distros that ship with BfW?

[loonycyborg]

Quoting GPL2:

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it.

Are midi/project files the preferred form to make modifications? If no, then they aren't sources and therefore there's no obligation to distribute them according to the GPL.

[West]

Quoting GPL2:

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it.

Are midi/project files the preferred form to make modifications? If no, then they aren't sources and therefore there's no obligation to distribute them according to the GPL.

This is exactly why the GPL can't really be applied to music. Preferred form to make modifications? Well, that would be my entire system, computer, DAW, samples and all. Should I send my machine to those who want to mod my music?

[loonycyborg]

This is exactly why the GPL can't really be applied to music. Preferred form to make modifications? Well, that would be my entire system, computer, DAW, samples and all. Should I send my machine to those who want to mod my music?

In this case it obviously means the preferred form for making modifications by other people than you. And your entire system is clearly not it.

If you wanted other people to make derivative works based on your music, in what form would you transfer it to them?

[zookeeper]

However... if we don't agree to commercial use, won't that clash with the GPL? Meaning, if the music is not allowed to be used commercially but everything else is (in accordance with the GPL), won't that mean problems with certain Linux distros that ship with BfW?

Well, sure, at least some Linux distros. Or more likely, for example in the case of debian, the music package just needs to be moved to a non-free repository instead of having it in the main ones, right? Doesn't sound like it'd be a huge problem considering that the music is already split into a separate package anyway.

[Tomsik]

Choice of non-commercial license would make it impossible to distribute wesnoth in commercial distros.

[West]

Choice of non-commercial license would make it impossible to distribute wesnoth in commercial distros.

Hmm.

Which commercial distros distribute the game?