[GZG] Licensing Re: Can Haz Full Thrust Game Server?

Hi Jerry,

> On Sep 20, 2008, at 4:12 PM, Jerry Han wrote:

> Samuel Penn wrote:

I completely understand. As I told Sam, sorry if that came across the wrong
way. I actually handle Open Source licensing in my day job, so I am well aware
of all the nuances; I just wasn't sure if people here wanted to get into all
of that. But since you are...

> So, be prepared for much pedantic detail discussion, because, that's

So, let me see if I can summarize the concerns:

a) Drive sales of miniatures b) By increasing public awareness of Full Thrust
c) while prevent slimy bastards from (legally) profiting d) and also
preventing cannibalization of the existing miniatures markets

Given that, I think there's two open source licenses worth considering:

GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html

Common Public Attribution License
http://opensource.org/licenses/cpal_1.0

Both of these are relatively unique, in that they are designed to protect web
services (like FTGS), not just redistributable software.

While the GNU AGPL is more hostile to 'slimy bastards', I would actually
prefer the CPAL, since it has a wonderful attribution clause:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Public_Attribution_License

Which, in this case, would point to Ground Zero Games. That way, Jon would be
assured of public recognition whenever *anyone* used the software, which I
think is a more important point.

Also, as I said before, I'd want the actual "data" to be under a non-
commercial license. Since it would (hopefully) be submitted by multiple
authors, that would prevent anyone from taking control of it and using it for
commercial purposes.

Does that sound like reasonable way forward?

To be sure, this doesn't address point (d). So, for now, how about I promise
to only implement "Full Thrust Light", since that is intended to be the
"teaser"; and, frankly, sufficient for my personal goals.
Once we see how that works for the community, we can re-negotiate.

So, to summarize:

a) Only Implement Full Thrust Light
http://downloads.groundzerogames.net/FTLrules.pdf

b) Source code under the CPAL, with Ground Zero Games for the Attribution
http://opensource.org/licenses/cpal_1.0

c) Data under a Creative Commons - Non-Commercial license (with a
similar Attribution)
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

Does that seem a reasonable set of safeguards?

-- Ernie P.