Technical Questions related to open source software and art

[Wussel]

I looked at your link.

We actually do give credits to artists
We enforce no change on the forum
We do not make money with Wesnoth
(although somebody has taken content and used it elsewhere on a money project in the past.)

I think cc-by-sa would be reasonable. Maybe even compatible, but I am not a lawyer. That is an opinion.

by - means give credits (no idea about by)

and

sa - means share alike (Whatever you derive from this content has to be open for others too, thus limiting the option of exploitation severly)

Meaning you can put the picture of a hero in front for storyline or change some colors as long as this is cc-by-sa too.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[Crendgrim]

No, it's not:

The GPL does allow making profit from the product [...]

[AI]

No, it's not:

The GPL does allow making profit from the product [...]

Specifically, the GPL does not allow "additional restrictions". There are various permissive licenses that require attribution without being incompatible with the GPL, but CC-BY-2.0 is considered by the FSF to be incompatible.

[pauxlo]

Thanks for getting precise. What is compatible licence? Cc-0?

To show you what I mean I post a typical Q&A from a terrific background landscape artist.

Q: May I use your image XYZ?
A: You are allowed to use my images for your personal use (e.g. desktop background).
You are NOT allowed to remove my signature from the image. (overpainting, cut off, etc.)
You are NOT allowed to use it in order to make any profit with them. If you want to buy a picture with all rights, write me an email at [...]

This sounds like no money, no change and give credits to me.

Yes. If the artist wanted, he could use the CC-BY-NC license so others would know easily what is allowed.

GPL says: everyone (who gets a license) is allowed to

• edit the image (e.g. remove the signature, change characters, whatever).
• make money from the image (e.g. sell a CD with the picture on it).

as long as some other conditions are met. So obviously it doesn't fit together.

I suppose you could buy the right to put the image into GPL, though.

[homunculus]

GPL says: everyone (who gets a license) is allowed to

• edit the image (e.g. remove the signature, change characters, whatever).
• make money from the image (e.g. sell a CD with the picture on it).

Is that really so?

from http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html:

The GNU Project has two principal licenses to use for libraries. One is the GNU Lesser GPL; the other is the ordinary GNU GPL. The choice of license makes a big difference: using the Lesser GPL permits use of the library in proprietary programs; using the ordinary GPL for a library makes it available only for free programs.

[AI]

When the FSF says 'free', they mean "free as in speech", not "free as in beer". This has confused a lot of people and is one of the reasons why the term "open source" exists.

[H-Hour]

Is that really so?

Yes. Anyone is allowed to sell software using code licensed under the GPL. This is why the action of these eBay sellers is perfectly legal. But they are also legally obliged to provide the source code of this software, for free, upon request (something these sellers may not be doing). In other words, the GPL says: "if you want to use my open software, you must open up your software." For this reason, it is not seen as a viable option for developers of proprietary programs, who would have to expose the proprietary aspects of their code as well.

I am not a lawyer, but the above is a widespread conventional understanding about GPL. Trying to parse the text of one license description or another in order to find loopholes for how to handle content will not change the fact that GPL is understood to operate in this way, and treating contributions otherwise would be disingenuous.

Where the GPL's copyleft policy gets more tricky is the question of how GPL is combined with other assets in a project and how this effects the other assets in that project. If I write a program which uses a GPL code library within the compiled binary, it would seem pretty clear that the binary must be licensed under GPL as well. However, what if my program just uses an image that is licensed under GPL? Must the software be GPL as well? These questions are more tricky, which is why, I would presume, the developers of Wesnoth have chosen a single, blanket license for all content.

[brendan_scott]

GPL permits you to sell copies provided you also comply with the licence terms. The point is that anyone else who has a copy can then also sell copies from the the copy they've just bought in competition => price drops = end of story.

However, so far as I can tell, Wesnoth artwork has been excluded from GPL compliance. In particular, no one seems to provide the source code for the work ("The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it." clause 3 of GPL v 2). For example, I presume most portraits are done in gimp or photoshop, but only jpgs are provided (so all layer information is lost). Further, tutorials say to work in 3x canvas size or larger, but only small jpgs are provided.

IMO, BfW should start enforcing the source code requirement for artwork - especially if its being commissioned (it should also have a better archive for the artworks - they are hard to track down). Part of the reason for providing source in programming is so that other people can learn from it. I think a similar argument applies for art.

[Blarumyrran]

The point is that anyone else who has a copy can then also sell copies from the the copy they've just bought in competition => price drops = end of story.

I'm pretty sure that the point has nothing to do with competition or price

However, so far as I can tell, Wesnoth artwork has been excluded from GPL compliance. In particular, no one seems to provide the source code for the work ("The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it." clause 3 of GPL v 2). For example, I presume most portraits are done in gimp or photoshop, but only jpgs are provided (so all layer information is lost). Further, tutorials say to work in 3x canvas size or larger, but only small jpgs are provided.

... what

since you obviously can't be bothered to actually check the portraits in the data folder (or the repo) where you would see them as png files, consider this - the portraits have transp background (for the dialogue slabs where they're overlaid on top of terrain), they CAN'T be jpgs.

[AI]

The game's source code and artwork, sound, and music assets are provided under
the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2, or (at your option) any
later version. Note that for artwork, sound, and music, we interpret
"preferred form of the work for making modifications" as the modifiable form
that the author chooses to ship us for the source tree. For convenience, a
reference copy of the GNU GPL version 2 is provided in the COPYING file in
this distribution.

So, with regard to the various types of artwork, we've weakened/clarified the GPL to say that whatever we ship *is* the source.

That said, let's not start legal discussions there.

[Wussel]

However, so far as I can tell, Wesnoth artwork has been excluded from GPL compliance. In particular, no one seems to provide the source code for the work ("The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it." clause 3 of GPL v 2). For example, I presume most portraits are done in gimp or photoshop, but only jpgs are provided (so all layer information is lost). Further, tutorials say to work in 3x canvas size or larger, but only small jpgs are provided.

I like Brendan's point! Everything he is saying applies to png as well as jpg. XCF would be needed for recoloring and such. Bigger size would be needed for turning, twisting and distortion and such. For the record: double side length (quadruple size) would be all you need. I personally like working with side length times 1.6 only to save size on my poor PC.

There is to be add the point of cropping. Most of the artists actually started to draw the full figure and crop it later to Wesnoth standards. The original art without cropping, in layers and working size would be according to GPL standards.

I have to say that Lord Bob is very supportive and supplies files upon request. I think the actual practice on this forum is more like CC share alike and mention artist.

Some artists got very aggressive in the past, if somebody actually did some recoloring. So not all like changes from others and aspiring artist actually stay away from "frankensteining" art. Personally I think all art experiments should go to workshop by fixed rule. ( No "this would be better" in contribution!)

Related to AI I would like to mention that a discussion about the application of the right license for art can not possible exclude some legal details. Ignoring facts which are not convenient is a common practice in the application of law even in so called developed countries. However I was under the impression, that the open source community is trying to be better than that.

[brendan_scott]

The point is that anyone else who has a copy can then also sell copies from the the copy they've just bought in competition => price drops = end of story.

I'm pretty sure that the point has nothing to do with competition or price

Whatevs.

since you obviously can't be bothered to actually check the portraits in the data folder (or the repo) where you would see them as png files, consider this - the portraits have transp background (for the dialogue slabs where they're overlaid on top of terrain), they CAN'T be jpgs.

On the contrary, I have bothered to check the portraits in the data folder. Try finding out who is the author of what artwork. If you are lucky there are credited in the _main.cfg file for the campaign - but usually not down to a file level, and it is not all that clear that the credits there are up to date. It would be nice if this data could be included as metadata in the image files themselves.

[brendan_scott]

The game's source code and artwork, sound, and music assets are provided under
the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2, or (at your option) any
later version. Note that for artwork, sound, and music, we interpret
"preferred form of the work for making modifications" as the modifiable form
that the author chooses to ship us for the source tree. For convenience, a
reference copy of the GNU GPL version 2 is provided in the COPYING file in
this distribution.

So, with regard to the various types of artwork, we've weakened/clarified the GPL to say that whatever we ship *is* the source.

That is, it's an admission of non compliance.

That said, let's not start legal discussions there.

Quite. I assume that this decision was made for a reason at some stage because of circumstances at the time. It ought to be revisited from time to time to confirm its justification is still valid. If the circumstances have changed (eg more artists willing to contribute? paying for the creation of the artwork?), then it ought to be revised. If not, affirmed.

[Gambit]

Content not licensed in a way that is compatible with GPLv2 will be removed from the add-on server, and action will taken against the person who uploads it. This can include a ban from uploading any other add-ons.

This forum is also not the place to discuss legal/policy changes, and you lot are not the people to discuss it. So you can knock that off right now as well.

Understood? Good.

[xtifr]

FWIW, images are not code, and the GPL specifically refers to code. I don't want to get into a legal debate (and not just because the mods said not to), but I will point out that lots of GPL'd code comes with images, including code from the FSF, who wrote the GPL in the first place. Wesnoth may have more art than your typical GPL'd program, but it's following accepted practice throughout the industry.

I've seen one GPL'd game that came with .blend files for its 3D models. Aside from that, I don't think I've ever seen a GPL'd program come with source data for its images.