Hello, speaking for a new game that will aim to be included in Debian, I wonder how certain media content can be legally distributed together with GPLv2 in one package.
The main problem is that applying the GPL to certain types of media seems quite unclear, especially because of the question What exactly is source code? E.g.: Textures usually are edited destructively, in applications like GIMP. Typically further editing is done based on the last saved finished version. However, sometimes they may even be based on screenshots from a (free) game and possibly custom content for it, which afterwards is edited in various ways. Also, a typical manual destructive editing steps is retouching. Music is typically done using a large range of applications, also using destructive editing steps. A typical pipeline might be: 1. handwritten musical score on paper 2. playing that on a MIDI keyboard into a notation application (e.g. Rosegarden) 3. quantizing and edits in that notation application 4. export to MIDI format from the notation application 5. rendering to an audio file by MIDI synthesizer applications, or even external hardware devices 6. editing that audio file with a wave editing application (e.g. Audacity) What is to be considered the source code here? Is it allowed to use a commercially bought MIDI synthesizer application and samples, or a physical device (like an electronically controlled piano) for the recording? Basically, in both cases the big problem is destructive editing steps. Just changing a note of the music is simply not possible without repeating all the editing steps after it. Which is something the author would not even remember, and most likely do a different way next time. So, as the GPL raises a big uncertainty on what exactly constitutes source for non-code assets, I wonder whether it would be wiser to instead choose a different license for these assets. Because of the source code requirement of the GPL, there cannot be any GPL compliant license fulfilling this. On the other hand, many games that have been accepted in Debian "main" contain music and textures without accompanying source code for these assets. For example, a similar case can be found in Frozen Bubble - the directory snd/ of the source distributiion contains multiple opaque (source-less) audio files, including introzik.ogg and frozen-mainzig-1p.ogg. Yet still, the game is licensed under the GPLv2. Furthermore, Enigma is released under "GPLv2 or later", and contains, in the directory data/ of the source distribution, a file models-2d.lua that references DejaVuSansCondensed.ttf, which actually is provided in the data/fonts/ directory. The Deja Vu fonts come with a license restriction that is not GPL compatible: The Font Software may be sold as part of a larger software package but no copy of one or more of the Font Software typefaces may be sold by itself. Also, for none of the graphics any more than a PNG file is provided. So, apparently these games - and many others - release source-less media content under the GPL, in case of Enigma even with clearly non-GPL-compatible origin. Therefore, I am asking - how can a game contain GPL code, but still use "more artist friendly" assets (especially because the source code requirement is NOT clear, as often there IS, because of manual destructive editing steps, no such thing as "complete corresponding machine-readable source code" source as the GPL demands)? Best regards, Rudolf Polzer -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100403122842.ga3...@rm.endoftheinternet.org
