Technical Questions related to open source software and art

[Wussel]

How relates gimp, gimp painter and gimp paint studio?
Does anybody likes to share experiences in what to use for Wesnothian art style?

What is CC 3.0 (Creative Common License)? Does it relate to the software license of Wesnoth?

[Crow_T]

How relates gimp, gimp painter and gimp paint studio?
Does anybody likes to share experiences in what to use for Wesnothian art style?

gimp painter and gimp paint studio are just presets, you don't really need them, but I like GPS's brushes. http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Portrait_Tutorial Here Kitty uses very basic brushes, nothing fancy. The Wesnoth style is less about the tool and more emulating the look, color, and rendering of mainline portraits, which can take some practice. Some things you can do: keep an mainline portrait open for reference and dipping the color picker into, and/or gimp can export a pallette from an image, so if you want to create a loyalist knight you can open a mainline one in gimp and create a color pallette from it for your character.

[artisticdude]

What is CC 3.0 (Creative Common License)? Does it relate to the software license of Wesnoth?

Creative Commons isn't a particular license, it's a group of related licenses. Also, the Creative Commons licenses aren't usually used as software licenses, and were never intended be used as such. Rather, the CC licenses are content licenses (for artwork, music, photographs, etc.) As far as I am aware, none of the CC licenses are used for any part of the Wesnoth project, although I lack the necessary authority to state that definitively.

Wesnoth's code is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2 or later (see http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Wesnoth:Copyrights for more details), which is not a Creative Commons license.

In case you haven't already read it, this thread contains the official policy regarding content contributions to the Wesnoth project.

[Wussel]

Let's try an example:
Assume there is a non Wesnothian artist who says: "Sure you can use my art, just mention my name and you will be fine. It is published under cc."

Would that be sufficient for Wesnoth standards? Could this art be posted on forum or server?

[Blarumyrran]

"It is published under cc."

how about you read what artisticdude said?

anyway obviously a licensing condition that the name must be included with the asset is not compliant with gpl.

[artisticdude]

"It is published under cc."

how about you read what artisticdude said?

Yes, like I've already pointed out:

Creative Commons isn't a particular license, it's a category of related licenses.

You can't license anything under the cc license, because there is no such thing as the cc license. CC is only a category of related licenses. Which CC license the author uses has a major impact when determining what you may do with the licensed content, as well as the compatibility between that license and the GPL. Strictly speaking, CC licenses and the GPL should never even need to be compatible, because they were each specifically intended to be applied to completely separate things (content vs code). However, due to the fact that Wesnoth uses the GPL license for content as well as for code (which shouldn't be the case in my personal opinion, but that's a rant for another day), it creates a bit of an awkward collision with CC-licensed content.

IANAL and all the usual disclaimers apply, but the GNU foundation only explicitly lists one of the CC licenses, namely the CC0 license, as being compatible with the GPL. The Creative Commons foundation, on the other hand, says that none of the CC licenses are compatible with the GPL, but that seems to be specifically in reference to licensing software:

One important reason why Creative Commons licenses should not be used to release software is that they aren’t compatible with existing free software licenses, most importantly the GPL from the Free Software Foundation, which is used by over half of free software projects.

See http://creativecommons.org/tag/gpl for more on that.

[Wussel]

OK. lets continue with my example: This artist is drawing pictures he is NOT writing code. The stuff might classify as content?

Let's assume the artist said what he said. I guess that is what artist do like Blarumyrum?

So I am supposed to answer: Which CC are you using? I can only use your art if you call it CCO, otherwise my Wesnoth GPL fans will not allow it even for content?

If that artist would react like Blarumbum, I will sure get a delight full answer. So would it be impossible to get to a meaningful understanding of this content license and to relate it to use in GPL published software application?

Users and Artist are clearly lost here. Even Blaromir should agree on that.

[AI]

OK. lets continue with my example: This artist is drawing pictures he is NOT writing code. The stuff might classify as content?

We don't discriminate between code and content. Everything is licensed as GPLv2+.

Let's assume the artist said what he said. I guess that is what artist do like Blarumyrum?

So I am supposed to answer: Which CC are you using? I can only use your art if you call it CCO, otherwise my Wesnoth GPL fans will not allow it even for content?

What do you mean? We don't use any CC license. If an artist has provided you work under a CC license, the only way you can simply use it without additional permission is if the license was CC0.

If that artist would react like Blarumbum, I will sure get a delight full answer. So would it be impossible to get to a meaningful understanding of this content license and to relate it to use in GPL published software application?

Users and Artist are clearly lost here. Even Blaromir should agree on that.

It helps if you spell the names of the people you are addressing correctly.

The GPLv2 is fairly simple. Someone with no background in legal stuff can read it and get a good idea of what it means.

[Wussel]

Why do people choose so complicated names? I went to a meeting today and people could not even use simple last names correctly. Well no cut and paste in real live. No pun intended Bxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Back to topic. So I would have to say: Would you be willing to agree publishing under GPL2+ on top of this CC thingy? ( I know it is a software license but people want to apply it for art too. Please read it yourself. It is straight forward)

I am curious if this is practicable. I am not sure if we really would be treating artists and art stuff right this way.

[Crendgrim]

Why do people choose so complicated names? I went to a meeting today and people could not even use simple last names correctly. Well no cut and paste in real live. No pun intended Bxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Please be more polite. Looking up a name instead of using four different, wrong variations intentionally is anything but polite.

Back to topic. So I would have to say: Would you be willing to agree publishing under GPL2+ on top of this CC thingy? ( I know it is a software license but people want to apply it for art too. Please read it yourself. It is straight forward)

Unless the "CC thingy" happens to be CC0, yes.

[Wussel]

Skipping the side tour and staying on topic (I said no pun intended):

CCO would be acceptable without any addition? Could be posted on the forum and server?

So basically I would just have to ask a clarifying question if it is published under CCO?

This sound a lot more feasible to me. But is this really THE official answer or a personal common sense opinion, which moderators do have as they are humans too?

To beef it up, see this example:

http://endabuwya.deviantart.com/art/Hyl ... -382530041

Nice sprites, maybe supportive artist, somebody would have to ask him.


EDIT:
I just found this

http://doctormo.deviantart.com/art/Whic ... -196792062

It says cc-0: No credits for Artist. All the artists usually want their name mentioned. There are on top no-money-making (guess we can not have that) and no-change-of-original-work (Could we have that? Our artist freak out too, if you recolor something or so)

So how about cc-BY? (Seems to mean: Just mention my name.)

[Iris]

I’m having trouble trying to understand what the actual questions are, so I’ll just provide a generic answer:

• All code and assets (including art) for mainline Wesnoth must be made available under the GNU GPL version 2 or later, or a compatible license. As pointed out above, of all the Creative Commons licenses, only the CC0 is known to be compatible with the GNU GPL in legal terms since it is effectively equivalent to the concept of Public Domain.
• All content in the add-ons server must be made available under the GNU GPL version 2 or later, or a compatible license, just as mainline Wesnoth (see above).

None of the points above preclude the possibility of dual or multi-licensing assets in order to allow their usage in Wesnoth or the add-ons server. If you need content to be dual or multi-licensed for some other purpose that is incompatible with the GNU GPL, the best you can do is to contact the original author directly.

[Wussel]

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 frankatt.art@gmail.com.

Source:
http://frankatt.deviantart.com/

This sounds like no money, no change and give credits to me. It would obviously take some interaction with the artist to figure out, if he would support the use of his art for Wesnothian storyline in general or for a specific project.

He does not like to be bugged, so a general clearance under defined conditions would probably easier than bugging him for every single picture.

Would it be asked too much, that some software experts re-evaluate the possibility to offer the use of cc-whatever for content from the Wesnothian side?

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.)

[Crendgrim]

Non-lawyer explanation, might be flawed or wrong:
The GPL does allow making profit from the product, so the term "You are NOT allowed to use it in order to make any profit with them." is incompatible with it. And this is why only the CC0 license is compatible, because it grants all rights.
So... as several people have told you: You need to have it as GPL or GPL-compatible, and from the CC licenses only the CC0 license is compatible.

[GunChleoc]

Sorry, but his conditions are not compatible.

You can read the CC0 here:

http://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/