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GBGames Blog License

Since some legal issues have come up, I thought now would be a good time to make it clear what the the end user license agreement for GBGames’ Blog actually says. This EULA outlines what rights you and I have when you read this blog and has been in effect since I started it over a year ago. Apparently some of you do not read the EULA and so are not aware of your rights and responsibilities. I am republishing the EULA as a service to you.

By reading GBGames’ Blog, hereby known as The Blog, you, hereby known as The Reader, must agree to the following terms and conditions. Failure to do so is copyright infringement and The Reader will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  1. The Reader is allowed to read, peruse, skim, and/or view The Blog, so long as the Reader does so under the terms of this license.
  2. The Reader may make comments in The Blog about specific posts of The Blog using the mechanisms provided by The Blog. The Reader may post about The Blog in his/her own blog, hereby known as an External Blog, and may use a trackback to allow its existence to be acknowledged in The Blog. The Reader may also post about or read about The Blog in other media, including but not limited to web forums, mailing lists, or email. Doing any of the above requires The Reader’s External Blog to be likewise licensed under the GBGames’ Blog License.
  3. The Reader agrees to relicense any source code he/she controls, whether owned by The Reader or another party, under the General Public License, and all copyright shall be immediately transferred to Gianfranco Berardi, owner of GBGames.
  4. Reading this license implies acceptance of the terms.
  5. No, seriously.
  6. THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE BLOG, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE BLOG “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE BLOG IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE BLOG PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
  7. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE BLOG (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE BLOG TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER BLOGS OR SOME OTHER WAY YOU MESSED UP), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

As I said, there have been some legal issues, and so appropriate and
proper steps have been taken. I basically hoped to inform and
reeducate my readers as to exactly what rights they may have
implicitly or explicitly been given or restricted in very clear, yet
legal terms.

Further developments may not be completely disclosed in the interest
of privacy, but anything I can provide will be made publicly available
on this blog. It’s been very, VERY trying for me in this time, but hey,
legal issues almost always are, right? I just try to think of my many
supporters. Without you, I don’t know where GBGames would be. B-)

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Posted by GBGames on Saturday, April 1st, 2006 at 2:00 am.

8 Responses to “GBGames Blog License”

:-D

Left by William Willing on April 1st, 2006

hehe I’ve been wracking my brain since last night trying to think of something worthwhile to post today. I’ve been looking for the “GarageGames cancel constructor” post ;)

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/top100.html

Left by Gary Preston on April 1st, 2006

“The Reader agrees to relicense any source code he/she controls, whether owned by The Reader or another party, under the General Public License, and all copyright shall be immediately transferred to Gianfranco Berardi, owner of GBGames.”

Umm this is confusing to me, so basically means if I read this blog I have to give my source code to you. At least that’s the way it sounds to me.

Keith

Left by Keith Weatherby II on April 1st, 2006

Keith, you read it correctly.

Basically I did this one to poke fun at the people who express fear that the GPL and FOSS in general will steal their livelihoods. There is a lot of confusion regarding the GPL, and quite a number of people think that the GPL license really is as absurd as my blog’s supposed license. B-)

Left by GBGames on April 1st, 2006

Except it does almost constitute a legal agreement. And the gpl is as confusing as that.

Keith

Left by Keith Weatherby II on April 2nd, 2006

I think it would be more accurate to say that the GPL is perceived by you to be confusing. My blog’s license seemed pretty straightforward enough for you to grasp. The GPL isn’t really confusing to someone who reads it.

What is confusing to most people is that “free software” doesn’t mean “freeware”, and even when people think they get it, they still continue to think of “free software” as software you “give away without cost”. A lot of people think that the GPL is about a free lunch. They think that it is about stealing the livelihoods of programmers. They think that it was a conspiracy from major companies to get free labor. They think that it is going to bring about a downfall in software development society, the equivalent of the Communist threat democratic/capitalistic ideals. The sad thing is that supporters as well as opponents have these same misconceptions.

The GPL is a license. Can you use/read/change/distribute the source? Only if you accept the license. There is nothing confusing about that concept since EULAs have been used to govern the use of software for a long time, regardless if it is for proprietary or free/open purposes.

So what is confusing about the GPL that isn’t confusing about copyright law in general? If a piece of software is governed under a proprietary license, it usually doesn’t cover changing or redistributing the source versions of said software. A huge part of copyright law is either completely ignored or ruled out by those EULAs. The GPL, however, does allow for the end user to have creative control of the source. It goes a step further by guaranteeing that the source can and will be made available to the person in question.

If you want to use source licensed under the GPL in your own code, you must follow the terms of the GPL. Part of those terms may require you to license your own code under a compatible license. It may not. Some people don’t like it, but it isn’t confusing at all.

Left by GBGames on April 2nd, 2006

They tend to use legal jargon, it’s not as cut and dried as all of that. As far as using the license, i’ve never used it, and probably never will. If I give out my source for free, i’ll state it as such. I don’t feel that someone that spent all their time on something should have to necesserily give it out to anyone. Of course if everyone did that we wouldn’t have such great free software.

Personally I don’t like the idea of using other software that’s GPL’d so that if I say, built a game off of gpl’d libraries, I have to give out the source to my game. I don’t want people just going and compiling junk, and claim it’s theirs. Of course only hard core users would do this, not most people. Then the choice is, well don’t use it, and so I don’t.

I generally prefer the zlib/libpng style license. Simply it’s copyrighted, but you can use it how you want. I also have no problem if someone wants credit for their work, that i’m happy to give. But to give away something myself, may seem a little stingy, but I still believe it’s my right to give or not give my own creations, no matter what it uses.

No matter what you say about it, you aren’t going to change my mind. If you feel like using the gpl, have a blast :-) But don’t assume I will do the same thing.

Keith

Left by Keith Weatherby II on April 5th, 2006

Keith, I think that if you honestly believe that the GPL is the wrong license to use, then that’s fine. You can pick a different license.

From what I read out of your comment, however, you seem to be completely convinced that the GPL is inappropriate for you in all cases. Otherwise, why would you state that you aren’t going to change your mind, especially when you say that the license is confusing? It sounds like you have a preconceived notion of what the GPL is and that you for some reason refuse to listen to any argument in support of it, no matter how many holes your own position gets. Presumably there is something that would convince you that the GPL can be valid for you in some case.

***I don’t want people just going and compiling junk, and claim it’s theirs.***

The GPL requires that your copyright notice be present, so if someone were to take your code and present it as their own, they are breaking the license. Similarly, the zlib license also requires you to have certain notice as to where your code came from. On this point, what’s the difference?

***If I give out my source for free, i’ll state it as such. ***

Which is fine, but the GPL doesn’t require you to give away your source to anyone who wants it.

***I don’t feel that someone that spent all their time on something should have to necesserily give it out to anyone.***

You do have a right to your own code. I am not arguing with that. There are some people who would argue that all code should be released as free or open source software, but I still believe that it is your perogative. That said, the absolute refusal to use anything licensed under the GPL in your own projects because you don’t want to give away your own code under its terms is fine. To refuse to do it because someone put a lot of effort into a codebase and shouldn’t have it taken away from them betrays a misconception.

People who use the GPL should be aware of what the license requires of them. I know of no people who accidentally apply the GPL to their code and then are surprised when they have to follow it. For instance, id software didn’t accidentally release Quake 3’s engine under the GPL, and yet there are still people who responded to the news with weird comments like, “Come on, guys! It’s really cheap at the store. Why not pay for it? Why do you have to try to make everything free?” Someone clearly got confused as to how the GPL works. A team of Gnu zealots didn’t storm id’s offices and hold members of the staff hostage until id gave in to their demands. No one hacked into their servers and secretly replaced all of id’s EULAs with copies of the GPL. And yet, people still react to the GPL as if it was a worm or a trojan that could steal everything you own. Some people probably hope that Norton or McAfee will release an update to their antivirus programs to make sure that the GPL doesn’t enter their systems.

As more and more source code is released under the GPL, it will be easier for free software developers to create new software. Within five years, I imagine that nothing will remarkably change about the GPL and yet a lot of people will be singing the praises of it in commercial software as if it was new. Today’s April 6th, so let’s see how things are on April 6th, 2011. B-)

Left by GBGames on April 6th, 2006

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