License

[Reihar]

Hi,

I'm trying to make a package for the community repository of my distro. To do so, I would have to specify a licence for the source. Have you considered a license for the project? I don't seem to be able to find one.

If there is a lot of variation between project included in the patch, would you be opposed to a license subfolder sub-request?

[BeauBouchard]

Actually I have thought a lot about this and I am not entirely sure what to do about a license for the package. As of now the ownership of the individual parts of the package sometimes have their own license(s)/copyright/copyleft and the original components which are unique and created for the package do not.

For example, there is a lot of differences between the major components:

• Python LNP
• DFhack
• Splintermind's Dwarf Therapist Copyright Trey Stout / MIT License
• Quickfort has Apache License, Version 2.0

I think its a subject which should be addressed at some point, maybe now that the organization is nearing its 1 year birthday and hopefully arrive at a solution as to what to do going forward.

Although I don't want a license to get in the way of making a great package, as always, anyone who's content is included in this package can simply ask for it to not be distributed without their permission, after all, most parts of the project are Personal copyright projects. In the past content has been requested to be removed, and we have without debate or hesitation removed said content.

[lethosor]

So far the zlib and Mozilla licenses have been suggested. Since a lot of content isn't specific to this pack, though (e.g. LNP-shared-core), I'd like to make sure other contributors have a say in this. @Lazy-Newb-Pack/maintainers?

[PeridexisErrant]

Hmm. For my own smaller code-based projects I tend to favor pretty strong copyleft (GPL3), but for something like this a permissive license is probably in order.

Would CC-BY-SA work, since this is mostly content rather than code? Toady is going to use that for all DF (non-executable) files from the next version onwards.

[lethosor]

Sure, that sounds pretty similar to the zlib license (and a number of others, I'm sure).
Did Toady mention that on the forums or in a PM?

[PeridexisErrant]

By email - copied below, with minor edits for brevity. My memory was slightly off; the plan is "something like CC-BY-NC-SA". For this pack I think a CC-BY-SA would be good though.

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Hi Tarn

With the TPP coming up, Australia is generally cracking down and implementing some very nasty copyright and internet laws.

This has me thinking a little more, as with the scale of the Starter Pack and the fact I'm taking donations, someone could decide I'm engaging in infringement 'at commercial scale' - which carries six-digit fines and jail time. Your feelings on this would likely not be taken into account. The risk is small enough that I'm not particularly worried, but I thought it was an issue worth raising.

At the same time, it's not always clear what people making mods or graphics packs (or whatever else) think about reuse or redistribution - I've literally never had someone tell me not to, but equally it's rare to see explicit permission.

Both of these problems could be solved with a 'copyleft' license. I remember that you're justifiably very cautious about this, as there is no way to take it back, but I think Creative Commons licenses could work well.

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The DF executable is already under a slightly less restrictive license than CC-BY-NC-SA (in the readme). Is the main issue the other files, or the wording of the readme as well?

I don't know if this helps with your concern in any case -- I can't do anything about the reuse or redistribution of mods as far as I know, unless they are modifying my objects and my images. The people that make raws or images from scratch have their own copyright and have to explicitly give up their rights. A CC-BY-NC-SA wouldn't attach to their additional files they make on their own, especially something like a tileset image, as far as I understand it. Though I'm not a lawyer, it seems unlikely that tangential items can get scooped up like that (or everybody's right and the license is truly "viral").

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Yeah, the potential problem is the other files if modified. Where it currently says to contact you, it would be great to have a standard condition that allows distributing modified non-binary files - this is what I suggested the CC-BY-NC-SA for.

It's not a magic bullet (or anywhere near that viral) of course, but most mods at least start with your standard raws. For other files or mods, they'll probably just use the same license - defaults are very powerful.

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Sure, I can put something along those lines in with the next release. I'll put a txt in the raw and data folders as well so that it can hitch a ride with general overhauls as the mod-friendly default option. Until then, you have my explicit written permission to distribute modified non-binary files from any of the dwarf fortress zip folders.

[BeauBouchard]

@PeridexisErrant

Following up with this, Should we now include the revised license information which accompanies DF in the package now?

I would like to work on an installer script to hopefully create LNP for package manager repos resolving a lot of cross distro problems by compiling binaries locally on install. In order to move forward there needs to be a license for the package.

[lethosor]

I'm a bit reluctant to adopt the "share alike" provision - I don't want to require people to use CC-BY-SA over another license, if that's what the provision requires. I'd be fine with CC-BY-NC, CC-BY, or some other license (I mentioned zlib since it's very permissive, although I'm not sure what other contributors' stance on possible commercial use is - I think DF's license forbids that, so I'm not sure what sort of commercial project would profit from just LNP-specific files, but I don't have a strong opinion on allowing/forbidding it).