No, because it imposes restrictions that go beyond what the GPL imposes. Primarily points 2 and 3.
Kyoufu Kawa at
It's the only thing I don't like about Build.
On the plus side, it's good for my C skills, being unable to just rip something from Duke and Shadow.
etko at
What will happen when I'll try to reimplement some sector system in another GPL project, however not referencing ani JFDuke/Build code. The only thing that will be similar are that level is split into the sectors. Am I violating something?
Skeksis at
Since there are many, many engines that are sector based, I don't think so...
etko at
Another question. I've just downloaded vanilla duke 3D source code which was GPLed and it contains BUILD engine source code too, however there is nowhere said in the source files under which licence this included BUILD is published. Looking at his I'm gaining impression that BUILD is actually dual licenced. Once with Buildlic by Ken and second time with GPL by 3D Realms. Am I right?
TX at
etko said
Another question. I've just downloaded vanilla duke 3D source code which was GPLed and it contains BUILD engine source code too, however there is nowhere said in the source files under which licence this included BUILD is published. Looking at his I'm gaining impression that BUILD is actually dual licenced. Once with Buildlic by Ken and second time with GPL by 3D Realms. Am I right?
No, you are about as wrong as is possible.
etko at
Why then there is no buildlic.txt included wit 3D Realms release? It is however mentioned in attached file. Few posts above was said that GPL is incompatible with Buildlic.txt, it is possible to intermix this? Can Build engine be used in GPLed Project?
TX at
etko said
Why then there is no buildlic.txt included wit 3D Realms release? It is however mentioned in attached file. Few posts above was said that GPL is incompatible with Buildlic.txt, it is possible to intermix this? Can Build engine be used in GPLed Project?
Build can be used with Duke3D, SW, and derivatives because Ken has given his permission for it to be used in conjunction with them. I don't believe that the Build engine is compatible with any other GPL projects unless explicit permission is given by Ken. It all comes down to the fact that the licenses aren't compatible, but as Ken and 3DR have retained the copyrights to their code, I believe they're free to make whatever exceptions to the license they wish.
etko at
Now I finally understand. Thank you, I hope this is right explanation ;).
Awesoken at
Whoever thought 3 little words would cause so much licensing confusion.
From: Ken Silverman
To: Charlie Wiederhold
Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2003
> George is thinking about including your KENBUILD.ZIP within the Duke 3D stuff if that's ok.
Yes, that's fine.
...
-Ken S.
I am perfectly happy with people mixing Build, Duke3D, and Shadow Warrior code. End of story. Let's not get lawyers involved, ok?
P.S. If you want to know why I didn't select GPL, you'll find some interesting reasons here: http://spl.haxial.net/gnu-gpl/ It's a bit extreme, but I tend to agree with some of it.
Kyoufu Kawa at
Awesoken said
I am perfectly happy with people mixing Build, Duke3D, and Shadow Warrior code. End of story. Let's not get lawyers involved, ok?
So I can stop mangling SW code into something not recognizable as SW code now? :)
GothOtaku at
etko said
Another question. I've just downloaded vanilla duke 3D source code which was GPLed and it contains BUILD engine source code too, however there is nowhere said in the source files under which licence this included BUILD is published. Looking at his I'm gaining impression that BUILD is actually dual licenced. Once with Buildlic by Ken and second time with GPL by 3D Realms. Am I right?
No. If you unzip all the source files you see that the BUILD files (in BuildEngine.zip) say at the top
// See the included license file "BUILDLIC.TXT" for license info.
which means that the use of them is under the BUILD license.
TX at
Kyoufu Kawa said
Awesoken said
I am perfectly happy with people mixing Build, Duke3D, and Shadow Warrior code. End of story. Let's not get lawyers involved, ok?
So I can stop mangling SW code into something not recognizable as SW code now? :)
No. You can use KenBuild code in a Duke3D or Shadow Warrior based project, but using Duke3D or Shadow Warrior code in a project that's under Ken's BUILD license is still illegal.
Kyoufu Kawa at
TX said
No. You can use KenBuild code in a Duke3D or Shadow Warrior based project, but using Duke3D or Shadow Warrior code in a project that's under Ken's BUILD license is still illegal.
F'darn!
Somehow, that doesn't seem to mesh with Ken's earlier statement, could be me.
etko at
What about including BUILD into GPLed project, I assume Ken's permission is needed?
JonoF at
The rule of thumb is if the licences you're mixing are incompatible, you need the permission of the licensing parties if you want to have the usual licence conditions waived. Ken has stated that projects based off the Duke3D or Shadow Warrior codebases are permitted to use the Build engine without fear of his wrath. The code from Duke3D or Shadow Warrior is still covered under the GPL, including any changes you make to it. Similarly, any changes you make on the engine side of things ought to be distributed under the Build licence. It's where the two halves come together that you need to be concerned about.
The question of licence compatibility is one of matching rights and restrictions of licence A with those of licence B. Consider the BSD licence, which, paraphrased, amounts to "you may use the code for any purpose at all, even selling or packaging with other code, provided you credit us in the documentation, and you don't even need to give the code to anyone." This is a very liberal and permissive licence, and if you were to use BSD licensed code with the Build engine, there wouldn't be a problem as the BSD licence doesn't contain anything which interferes with Ken's terms.
A more challenging example, owing to the poor clarity of the licence, is the LGPL (Lesser/Library GPL). It's hard to determine exactly (unless perhaps you're a lawyer) from the bare text of the licence whether you are permitted to statically link the LGPL code with your proprietary stuff under an incompatible licence, so much so that some people have had to explicitly state that you may statically link their LGPL code with your proprietary code, provided if you modify the LGPL module that you respect the LGPL with regards to those changes. You can freely link LGPL with GPL or other LGPL code, or code of a compatible licence (eg BSD), but if the licence is incompatible, like Ken's is, you enter a grey area. You are apparently fine though if you make the LGPL code, say, a DLL or shared object.
The GPL is more restrictive again than the LGPL: GPL can only mix with GPL or code of a compatible licence (eg, LGPL, BSD). A perfect licence if you don't want commercial entities nicking your stuff and profiting from it wholesale without them putting their code on the line too, but you often find some really useful software is dually-licenced for commercial and open use for this reason.
Hope this helps
Jonathon
GothOtaku at
You can link LGPL code wither statically or dynamically with non-open source code. However, the original 4-clause BSD license is not compatible with the GPL.
Dune at
What about MS Shared Source? This is a prime reason why I am switching back to Windows supposedly they should open it soon. I like the OOP of Windows to do thing s quickly.
Shared Source
JonoF at
Dune said
What about MS Shared Source?
What about it? Microsoft's "Shared Source" nonsense is irrelevant in this discussion.
Update: Just to clarify my position, if Microsoft can be trusted (a big ask IMO but I'm somewhat biased), and the code they release is under a licence compatible with the other licences you use, then there's no reason to not use the code they provide if it suits your purposes. If you look at http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/licensingbasics/sharedsourcelicenses.mspx the useful licences I can see are the Ms-PL and Ms-CL licences. The Ms-RL is only useful to a developer if you're debugging and need to "see inside the black box", or if you can't work out from the documentation what's actually going on. I'll be most surprised if the guts of DirectX or the Windows APIs are ever made public under this licence. Frankly I believe no member of the public will see the real meat of the Windows OS because it's far far far too risky for MS to expose themselves to that extent, at least not without the prerequisite of enormous NDAs. Windows will almost certainly never be open or free in the manner Linux, BSD, and friends are. If you consider Apple's OS X, the Darwin kernel is open sourced but all the proprietary bits bolted onto it are still closed source, like the hardware drivers, Quartz rendering system, etc.
Jonathon
Dune at
Ok, for me I would wait until it was more a proof of concept. They would really have to compete with Gnome, Konq, etc. to get my attention. Why should I hump their API if it is not even on that level?
When with OpenSolaris I would get a JDS which is cross compatible I think. I have to check with my OS host and see if he updated I was a little pissed yesterday. Stupid hardware problems.
etko at
Shameless promotion: If you want open sourced windows go on and check ReactOS (it needs developers), I hope this project will get into the state where Linux is now ;). I wouldn't trust Microsoft they will never ever realease the source code they actually used in producing WindowsOS.
All I wanted to know is whether Ken is willing to allow to use build in GPLed project.
GothOtaku at
Dune said
What about MS Shared Source? This is a prime reason why I am switching back to Windows supposedly they should open it soon. I like the OOP of Windows to do thing s quickly.
The thing about opening Windows was that certain European countries were going to go to all open source and if Microsoft wanted to keep the governments using their software they'd have to open it up for security reasons. This never really went anywhere I believe and gained notoriety solely due to open source zealots pushing for it. However, remember when Windows Vista was going to be .NET only? Part of the reason for that was if they did have to open the source to Windows they'd be able to get by with only realeasing the kernel, drivers, and .NET runtime and keep everything else as .NET bytecode. Luckily .NET was deemed to slow to run an OS on so they converted it back to C++.