Foreverhood disqualified from the IGF

[Graf Zahl]

Depending on how separated the Heretic/Hexen code in Vavoom is, that might not be legal GPL either. The same goes for the Doomsday engine, which was originally based on Hexen's source. Hexen is now a plugin, but how much Hexen code is still in the main executable?

The question is easy to answer:

Polyobjects have to be an integral part of the engine so there's inevitably some of Raven's code in the common code base - even if the current plugin system of Doomsday doesn't use it currently in the other games.

For Vavoom it is even clearer. Despite separating the games it still implements most features in all of them and again the polyobject code is part of the engine's core, not the game plugins.

And a few versions ago it went from Hexen's ACS VM to ZDoom's and relicensed it as GPL. Can it do such a thing?

[Ajapted]

But in the end, does anybody really care? It seems to me that anyone can slap a GPL notice on Raven's code without any complaints. Vavoom did it, Legacy did it and Doomsday did it as well.

I care. I still want to do the Right Thing (tm), even if everyone else no longer does. The Legacy, Vavoom, Doomsday (etc?) developers are not going to be happy if they are booted off sourceforge, but if that happens, then ultimately it will be their own fault.

[Enjay]

I care. I still want to do the Right Thing (tm), even if everyone else no longer does.

All depends what you mean by the "right thing". If Raven no longer care (and I don't know if they do or not) and are quite happy with people slapping a GPL on code derived from their engine, then there is nothing morally wrong, even if the legal situation still has you firmly pegged in the wrong place. Their license was presumably written with the intent of protecting their interests. If their interests have changed (or were misinterpreted in the first place), the license is lagging behind and no longer represents what they want. It's still legally incorrect to violate it though.

[Graf Zahl]

I read somewhere that the license was slapped on the source release by some idiot lawyer at Activision who didn't have a clue what he was doing.

I care. I still want to do the Right Thing (tm), even if everyone else no longer does. The Legacy, Vavoom, Doomsday (etc?) developers are not going to be happy if they are booted off sourceforge, but if that happens, then ultimately it will be their own fault.

Is Sourceforge doing something like this if they find out that a license is invalid?

[Kristus]

All depends what you mean by the "right thing". If Raven no longer care (and I don't know if they do or not) and are quite happy with people slapping a GPL on code derived from their engine, then there is nothing morally wrong, even if the legal situation still has you firmly pegged in the wrong place. Their license was presumably written with the intent of protecting their interests. If their interests have changed (or were misinterpreted in the first place), the license is lagging behind and no longer represents what they want. It's still legally incorrect to violate it though.

I bet 20$ they couldn't give to shits about it. Since they gave Hexen : Edge of chaos for doom3 the legal rights to use their trademark to make their mod. So what would they care about some obsolete code?

[DoomRater]

I dunno.... they are still holding all the copyrights on the IWAD which is just as dated as the EXE itself.

[Ajapted]

Is Sourceforge doing something like this if they find out that a license is invalid?

I'm not sure exactly what Sourceforge would do, but removing a project that doesn't comply with their Terms of Service (which require projects to be fully Open Source unless they approve of it) is something they certainly could do. (They would probably ask that project to remove the offending code and binaries from their servers first).

My feeling matches what Enjay said: they are not doing anything morally wrong, like using the code commercially, but I'm still uncomfortable with the situation.

[randi]

And a few versions ago it went from Hexen's ACS VM to ZDoom's and relicensed it as GPL. Can it do such a thing?

Oooohhhh. Naughty naughty. He can use the code, yes. He can relicense it as GPL, no. E-mail sent.

[skadoomer]

they are not doing anything morally wrong, like using the code commercially, but I'm still uncomfortable with the situation.

As am I. I've worked too damn hard on this project to have it shot down by someone with your feelings playing for the opposite team, who also wants to do "The Right Thing (tm)" in the companies best interest.

Oooohhhh. Naughty naughty. He can use the code, yes. He can relicense it as GPL, no. E-mail sent.

Now this is what i'm afraid of. At some point in time, information EXACTLY like this surfaces and regardless of who is morally right in this situation, the law is still the law. Chances are the authoritys will never catch up to you, but your peers definitly will.

[Graf Zahl]

Oooohhhh. Naughty naughty. He can use the code, yes. He can relicense it as GPL, no. E-mail sent.

Now this is what i'm afraid of. At some point in time, information EXACTLY like this surfaces and regardless of who is morally right in this situation, the law is still the law. Chances are the authoritys will never catch up to you, but your peers definitly will.

In this case the original license is much less restrictive than the new one. ZDoom's license allows use of its code in GPL'ed projects but it doesn't require it (as the GPL does) so by relicensing the use of the code is restricted more than it was before.

Well, I had the opposite problem when I added FraggleScript to GZDoom, knowing fully well that it'd create a licensing problem. But Fraggle was nice enough to grant me permission to use the code but if he had denied it I would have had to to some really dirty tricks to be able to continue to use it.
Frankly, I don't like the vampiric nature of the GPL which tries to force everything under it. As such for my own code I'd rather use the LGPL because that'd create much less issues in case some non GPLable code becomes involved somewhere down the line.

So there's one question I have to the licensing experts: One thing I really don't want to see is that someone takes GZDoom and creates a closed source project off of it. (like Skulltag did with ZDoom.) Can I relicense the GL rendering code to LGPL without causing any conflicts with the rest of the code?

[DaniJ]

I would imagine you could only do that and be 100% free of the other licenses if you (cleanly) seperated the renderer into a plugin.

I'm also concerned regarding Doomsday and the license issue. Unfortunetly due to how much has been changed since it began life as jHexen it is now very difficult/impossible to know for sure how much of Hexens original code has influenced/is in use in Doomsday.

From what I can tell the main stuff is polyobjects (obviously).

Also a comment in netcode also reveals that it was "Once upon a time based on Hexen's peer-to-peer network code" but I've compared the current src to the original Raven released code and they don't even bare a passing similarity anymore. Suggesting that it has now been completely rewritten.

Other than those there is the odd PIT_ traversal routine and some lowlevel stuff (which could have easily come from Doom as they are exactly the same).

How permanent are licenses when dealing with code that has been completely redesigned and rewritten?

[Graf Zahl]

I would imagine you could only do that and be 100% free of the other licenses if you (cleanly) seperated the renderer into a plugin.

As the LGPL allows mixing code with other licenses I am wondering how that code could influence something separate. I fear there won't be a definitive answer.

I'm also concerned regarding Doomsday and the license issue. Unfortunetly due to how much has been changed since it began life as jHexen it is now very difficult/impossible to know for sure how much of Hexens original code has influenced/is in use in Doomsday.

From what I can tell the main stuff is polyobjects (obviously).

Well, I'd say you have a problem. Since it is common knowledge that it started out as jHexen there's no way you can get rid of Raven's license that easily. For the pieces of code that are obviously identical to the one in the GPLed Doom source it's not an issue but all the little differences here and there can be.

Also a comment in netcode also reveals that it was "Once upon a time based on Hexen's peer-to-peer network code" but I've compared the current src to the original Raven released code and they don't even bare a passing similarity anymore. Suggesting that it has now been completely rewritten.

Well, that's bad - because it acknowledges Raven's license as valid. Such comments are to be avoided at all costs when you care about licensing issues. Best is to never even mention code that has a license you don't like.

Other than those there is the odd PIT_ traversal routine and some lowlevel stuff (which could have easily come from Doom as they are exactly the same).

As they are exactly the same you can always claim you took it from the Doom source.

How permanent are licenses when dealing with code that has been completely redesigned and rewritten?

If it was a gradual rewrite of the original and it can be traced back to its originating source the original license might still apply. But that's something for the lawyers to answer.

[Chris]

As the LGPL allows mixing code with other licenses I am wondering how that code could influence something separate. I fear there won't be a definitive answer.

As I understand it, the GPL influence anything it's compiled with, while the LGPL simply influences the original code. Meaning, if you put even a small piece of GPL code in ZDoom and release it, all of ZDoom must be released under the GPL to comply (and since it can't, there becomes a problem). The LGPL, however, allows you to put LGPL code in ZDoom, as long as the LGPL code is kept LGPL (meaning you have to release any changes to the LGPL code, and make it available on request, blahblah.. but it doesn't apply to the rest of the program).

[DaniJ]

Its a bit of a sticky issue and one which has always been present. IMO its something that ALL the sourceports should be concerned about as its like having a time bomb imbedded in your brain.

Has there ever been a group attempt to get Activision to "do the right thing" and rerelease the source under GPL? I'm sure if we could gather enough momentum and put our case to ID then at least Carmack would back us. I seem to recall he wasn't pleased with the license Activision slapped on what was a licensed engine...

Obviously this would be the best sollution for everyone concerned but I intend to try and "fix" the license issue to some extent in Doomsday (at some point) by removing any routines which have obviously come from Hexen and replacing with entirely new code.

As Foreverhood proves as we get further removed from the confines of the original Doom engine the Raven license issue is one that is going to haunt us.

In many places there are comments which are very misleading as to the origins of the code. For example some src files claim to be "based on Hexen" when they are obviously not in any way, shape or form. Naturally I won't try to falsify code which has come directly from Hexen though as that would just be wrong.

I would like to get a clearer picture as to what has come from Hexen. So I'll probably spend some time working back through the CVS and I'll see what Skyjake can tell me about the origins of some of it (maybe he even has an old source package for Doomsday 0.99.4 I can dissect).

Luckily though, 80% of the current engine code has been written/rewritten from scratch by Skyjake.

[Ajapted]

I would sign a petition to Id and/or Raven requesting the Heretic and Hexen source code be re-released under the GPL, or LGPL (I think GPL has the best chance of success due to Carmack's precedent). It would also be nice to get the Wolfenstein3D source code re-released under GPL, but maybe that's a fight for another day.

I don't have any experience with the Hexen code, and would be willing to produce a clean-room implementation of the polyobj code (by modifying the Doom code).

But a bigger problem is ACS, and I'm not willing to reverse engineer that, it's too big.

I think it was a big mistake for ZDoom to include code from Build. It doesn't seem likely that Ken Silverman would ever relicense it under an open source license.