May a shareware mod be created?

[Aekar]

I tried to find an answer to this question that may have been asked a few times.
Unfortunately forum search hasn't provided me with an answer.

Wesnoth is a free open-source game and welcomes free user-made additions to it (mods, ideas, ...).
It is then completely free of any commercial process, concentrating on the "creative" part without any business objective.
And I find it great as it is.

However, in order to...
- make graphic/music artists contribute more easily,
- free some big time into huge and fun projects,
- or give access to some copyrighted materials,
... I must ask one question regarding "commercial" contribution.

And since I haven't indentified any email address as being "THE" Wesnoth-entity contact address, I put this freely on the forum.

The question is:
May users be authorized to create a mod and propose it as a shareware? And if so, may they propose it in other commercial forms?


To put things in more details:

That means a corporate entity (or a one-people entity, this isn't important) produces mods as sharewares or as protected downloads. Protection would actually be quite low, since the modules could be pirated easily. The content must be proposed as it really is (a shareware addon for instance), and must also provide links to the official Wesnoth and information about Wesnoth itself as an open-source project on which this content has been based.

For the "OsCommerce" open-source project for instance, you may find commercial versions of it (like "Creload"), which are actually of a bad quality - though they add a few features - but that business people buy on a regular basis. It is a commercial version built on an open-source base.

Since Wesnoth has more appeal for players than for business people, such a problem may not have come so far.

I actually would find it great to be able to work on a shareware mod project or create one. I could then provide creative content, use time for it, for the whole fun of creating, and tell my family that everything will be fine... whether it will be true or not


Since this contribution would also use free open-source content (the Wesnoth engine), providing shares of sales to the Wesnoth team may actually be unfit. It must actually be seen as an independent will to provide fun content and propose it to users ; users may, or may not want to pay for it, the decision would be up to them and only them.


So, has there already been an answer to this very question?

[Turuk]

When someone distributes a GPL'd work plus their own modifications, the requirements for distributing the whole work cannot be any greater than the requirements that are in the GPL.


Open source means that the source code is available to all potential users, and they are free to use, modify, and re-distribute the source code. Legally, the "free" of open source refers exclusively to the source code, and it is possible to have support, services, documentation, and even binary versions which are not monetarily free.

Shareware is a different concept. You can download and try shareware for free, but if you use it, you are supposed to pay for it. It is developed and released by someone who keeps full control of the intellectual property. The user does not have access to the source code and cannot modify it.

Since shareware means that you are not making the source code free for the users, you are exceeding the requirements beyond what is in the GPL.

[Ken_Oh]

What exactly do you mean by "mod?" If you mean taking the current source, adding to it/altering it and packaging the result as shareware, then, no, I'm pretty sure that violates the public license.

But, if you mean creating something that goes along with Wesnoth as an optional add-on to any version of it (a graphics pack, a campaign, a patch that makes Wesnoth a WWII game, etc.) and releasing that as shareware, I don't think it would be illegal. Not 100% sure on that though.

[Aekar]

Thanks for your input Turuk.

But, if you mean creating something that goes along with Wesnoth as an optional add-on to any version of it (a graphics pack, a campaign, a patch that makes Wesnoth a WWII game, etc.) and releasing that as shareware, I don't think it would be illegal. Not 100% sure on that though.

That was exactly what was on my mind, Ken_Oh: propose an optional add-on and release it as a "buyable" content.
Redistributing Wesnoth itself must - or should at least !- be completely illegal, which would be fair.

There still is a cloud in my understanding of the answer.
You made a very accurate post Turuk, maybe it is only my understanding that is cloudy (I am French and english is a foreign tongue to me).

From what I read so far, the answer would be that:
- a modification to the game (whatever it may be: simple documentation, or a mod, or a campaign, ...) could be proposed and redistributed as a "buyable", "purchasable" content,
- the users need to be allowed to modify the Wesnoth source code in any distribution that is made,
- this doesn't actually imply that the modification itself needs to allow user-modification and user-redistribution, only the Wesnoth source code must.

The few problems being raised are more technical: an add-on is read by Wesnoth on several readable .cfg files, which means that technical protection of the added content would be close to zero. But technical protection isn't the question being asked.

It is more a question about "legal" protection.

Let's take one very concrete example.

EXAMPLE:

Let's suppose I am a friend of George Lucas (happy me), George Lucas is a fanboy player of Wesnoth, and I bring a "Star Wars Mod" with official agreement from his corporate entity. It uses copyrighted materials with agreement, is proposed as a purchasable add-on, and once downloaded it installs itself on Wesnoth just like a normal user-made campaign.

This mod displays a copyright notice about copyrighted words ("Star Wars", ...), pictures, musics, and such.
But it is otherwise playable by anyone who purchased it.

Do you mean Turuk that it may only happen if people are allowed to redistribute and modify the mod if they want to?
Or that the mod itself, that uses copyrighted content, may be legally protected (being considered as an additionnal content with its own distribution policy), as long as it does work with the current re-distributable Wesnoth source code?

[zookeeper]

I suppose you could create a Wesnoth add-on using whatever license you wish. You just couldn't publish it on the official add-on server, as it requires GPL.

[silene]

Or that the mod itself, that uses copyrighted content, may be legally protected (being considered as an additionnal content with its own distribution policy), as long as it does work with the current re-distributable Wesnoth source code?

This is fine, since the addon itself is not considered a modification of Wesnoth (unless you took existing .cfg files and pictures and modified them). As a matter of fact, you could even modify and redistribute Wesnoth, as long as you comply with the GPL for the "engine" part and that the modified engine doesn't depend on your addon (that is, it would still be able to run standard campaigns and addons). (Disclaimer: IANAL.)

[Dave]

WML + images/data is to the Wesnoth engine as Python code is to the Python interpreter.

The Python interpreter is GPLed, but Python code need not be GPLed. If you modify someone else's GPLed Python code, then your Python code will need to be GPLed.

The Wesnoth engine is GPLed, but WML + images/data need not be GPLed. If you modify someone else's GPLed WML + images/data, then your resulting content will need to be GPLed.

David

[Turuk]

Do you mean Turuk that it may only happen if people are allowed to redistribute and modify the mod if they want to?

I think Dave addressed it very well, so hopefully that answered your question. It really depends on exactly what you are using from Wesnoth.

[turin]

Does that mean that technically you can't edit someone else's unit and scenario files into your own unit and scenario files - you know, the basic way we tell everyone to learn WML and start creating their campaign?

[Turuk]

Does that mean that technically you can't edit someone else's unit and scenario files into your own unit and scenario files - you know, the basic way we tell everyone to learn WML and start creating their campaign?

Nope, people are allowed to do that, as long as they release their resulting work under GPL, and all content put on the add-on server is required to be under GPL.

[turin]

Does that mean that technically you can't edit someone else's unit and scenario files into your own unit and scenario files - you know, the basic way we tell everyone to learn WML and start creating their campaign?

Nope, people are allowed to do that, as long as they release their resulting work under GPL, and all content put on the add-on server is required to be under GPL.

Err, yeah, there was an implied "and then release their content as shareware" to my post. (I know how the GPL works, thank you very much.)

I'm just saying it seems odd to me that you're allowed to write the WML for a campaign or unit from scratch and release it as shareware, but that if you edit your unit or scenario into being from an existing campaign, you have to put it under GPL. It makes sense for scenarios where actual programming is done, but unit files are just data containers, and you'd just be replacing all the GPL'd data with your own shareware data. And the simpler scenarios, as well, are just data containers.

Though I guess since no one could ever tell whether you wrote your unit files from scratch or based them on existing ones, it doesn't really matter.

Back on topic - I guess you *could* do a shareware mod of Wesnoth, but do you really think it would be profitable? There's already so much good free content for Wesnoth, I don't see why anyone would want to pay for what would basically be more of the same - new artwork (you'd have to do a LOT of work to make it better though), new units, new campaigns, but people are making those for free all the time. I think the content would have to be significantly better than the mainline content (which is already head-and-shoulders above any of the user-made mods) to make it worth it for anyone to buy it. It seems to me you'd be better off writing a new game from scratch.

[Dave]

Does that mean that technically you can't edit someone else's unit and scenario files into your own unit and scenario files - you know, the basic way we tell everyone to learn WML and start creating their campaign?

You can't if you're planning to release your content under a different license.

As soon as you decide you want to make shareware content, you're going to have to write everything yourself, from scratch.

...things might be a little unclear if you e.g. combined your own WML with GPLed image files. You might be able to keep the images under the GPL and shareware your WML.

David

[Aekar]

I thank you for all your answers.

The free content is great indeed.
However the Wesnoth engine allows many possibilities, and it seems to me that thanks to those increasing possibilities, even more could be done.

As a board game publisher myself, I have people who contribute their creativity to board games (as I do myself) ; however those people usually need concrete resources - money, that is! - in order to contribute; and the final product needs money to be published, money to be distributed, even if throughout all the publication and distribution chain you do have very, very passionnate gamers.

Knowing more about Wesnoth licensing policy (and about such things in a more general way) was very important to me, so as to make the right choices in mod development. Such choices needs much more thinking in other fields (what should be developed), but knowing this legal possibility is the first criteria

So thanks for your replies, and be assured that if a "shareware" mod is put in production, then a free version would be published ways beforehand so that people could feel the fun out of it!

[JW]

Does that mean that technically you can't edit someone else's unit and scenario files into your own unit and scenario files - you know, the basic way we tell everyone to learn WML and start creating their campaign?

You can't if you're planning to release your content under a different license.

As soon as you decide you want to make shareware content, you're going to have to write everything yourself, from scratch.

See below.

I guess since no one could ever tell whether you wrote your unit files from scratch or based them on existing ones, it doesn't really matter.

And, if someone can tell that you're copying and not starting from scratch, then you deserve to be caught. AFAIK all of the simple WML is so standard that it looks exactly the same everywhere it's found.

It's like buying a plane ticket at the gate, or buying it online. Two different methods to get to the exact same object, but when you're on the plane can anyone tell how you got there?

As for releasing a shareware mod: good luck; you'll need it.

JW

[Dave]

AFAIK all of the simple WML is so standard that it looks exactly the same everywhere it's found.

If it's just simple standard WML then it's likely not distinguishable enough to be considered copyrighted. Same for short, small, simple pieces of literature, music, or programming code.

...but if it's something really substantial, then it is copyrightable.

Laws around this kind of thing are pretty well established.

David