Is it legal to rerelease opensource?
Community Forums/General Help/Is it legal to rerelease opensource?
| ||
| Is it legal to download an opensource (GPL) software, make your own changes, and then rerelease the game/software under opensource license publicly and or under another name? How can I go along with editing a GPL software legally? |
| ||
| Yes, just don't add anything to the project that is not also under GPL license. Changing a projects name does seem a little disingenuous. Any chance of some specifics? |
| ||
| Any chance of some specifics? Red Eclipse.. If I edited Red Eclipse (an FPS) and called it Red Eclipse 2, would I be in violation of the GPL? and thanks for the previously stated information. :) |
| ||
| Not a problem by itself. For example, Nexuiz is a heavily-modified Quake. The answer is slightly more complex than skidracer makes out: you can add whatever code you like as long as the whole project is built of GPL-compatible components. If for instance you use or write BSD- or MIT-licensed modules, that code stays copyright you/whoever, and stays MIT-licenced when viewed on its own, but the GPL overrides it for the project as a whole because the GPL is "stronger". Copyright of each module stays with whoever wrote it, and the combined work is a shared copyright of the authors of each component. The important thing is that each part be GPL-compatible. This is no problem for permissive licences like MIT (since they basically let you do whatever you want anyway), but some licences have terms that conflict with the GPL, e.g. The Qt licence. It is illegal to distribute a program built using both GPL and Qt components to anyone other than yourself because it's impossible to meet all of the requirements. Same goes for BRL's BlitzMax modules prior to the version where they all became BSD (or whatever the new licence is). This is because the GPL (and Qt for that matter) places restrictions upon the entire resulting project as part of the agreement for using the GPL'd code in the first place. One of its extra restrictions is that the entire project must be licenced under terms that give it the same protection as the GPL or better, this effectively translates to "everything it touches turns to more GPL". (This sounds unreasonable initially, but it's not: a licence can insist that you wear a pink hat while reading the code if it wants to - it's you who decides to agree to the restrictive terms, or to use something else.) There's also some disagreement over whether it's relevant, but the FSF also frowns upon using limited-access compilers to write or deploy GPL'd code. They certainly get annoyed when discussing iOS. BlitzMax might be seen as a similar violation-in-spirit because of the compiler being commercial. Anyway short answer is that what you want to do is exactly what the GPL was created for. Just remember that any reused code remains copyright of its original authors. However, you absolutely must read and understand the whole thing before so much as touching anything licenced under it. If you don't read a licence it's your own fault if you get sued. You absolutely cannot just "wing it" and skip reading the licence when developing. If you don't understand it, consult a lawyer, or do not use GPL'd code. You can normally find the full text of the licence in a file called "COPYING" in source distributions. You probably clicked through to ignore it a few times when installing binaries of software (e.g. Firefox) as well. GO BACK UP AND READ THAT LAST PARAGRAPH! |
| ||
| Forget the code - It's not the only issue. There is copyright on models, music, sounds... and even if all that is GPL'ed, there is also copyright on the story (if any), characters names, places, and even on the "IP" itself. You probably won't get away releasing "Red Eclipse 2" - If you call it "Black Eclipse", change all names, places, stories and so on... you should be safe. But I'm no lawyer, so don't take this as a legal advice :P~ |
| ||
| Thanks for the info, Yasha. hmm... Black Eclipse... |
| ||
| Don't ever just listen to an internet comment saying "Yeah it's fine" or "Don't do it"!!! Not to offend or suggest anything about the Blitzbasic members who've posted above, I think they've all made reasonable replies and I agree with them. It's just that we're not lawyers (to my knowledge - I know I'm not, and SLotman says he isn't either at least!) You have the GPL license information that you are specifically referring to, and you are best advised to read it, thoroughly - as Yasha points out: "However, you absolutely must read and understand the whole thing before so much as touching anything licenced under it. If you don't read a licence it's your own fault if you get sued. You absolutely cannot just "wing it" and skip reading the licence when developing. If you don't understand it, consult a lawyer, or do not use GPL'd code. You can normally find the full text of the licence in a file called "COPYING" in source distributions. You probably clicked through to ignore it a few times when installing binaries of software (e.g. Firefox) as well" I will add, that I believe I have read that if you redistribute projects made with such licensed code. You must include not only a similar license but also the source code (or the source code must be made available on written request) Again, though - don't take my or any non-lawyer's word for it! |
| ||
| ... better only provide the source on an website-download, or on request. Project-sources may be bigger than the resulting binaries+assets. If you are not sure what to do: use public domain code - but still there you may run into problems as nobody will guarantee you that the one is the legal owner of the rights to put something into public domain (else one would declare leaked windows sources as public domain...). Even on github etc you will find sources which are "free to use" but contain a gpl-textfile. That is why we in Germany are living a bit safer when asking for written permission of the author we are thinking of being the legal rights owner. If he/she is not willed to sign: do not use it for the designated intention. If he/she signs, but somehow that application/source is breaking law: you can sue "them" when someone else is sueing "you" (but you still have to attend both fights for money). This is bureau"crazy" par deluxe but therefor one isn't sued for millions here (I know, in some cases such big numbers result of the penalty/punishment-rules). bye Ron |
| ||
| Yes you can. Just do not include any media (icons, logos blah blah) unless they are free to do so. |
   |