66 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
66 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
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I'm going to take a few moments to try and explain this new license and
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the reasons behind it in plain English. The legalese for the license can
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be found online at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/legalcode
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and should be read and understood in detail before you use this code.
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This new license was chosen because of a failing with the GPL. It only
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covered distribution of source if and only if binaries were distributed.
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In a web environment, specifically an interpreted web environment, merely
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installing a game does not constitute distribution, and therefore people
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were taking our work, making modifications to it and not releasing the
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source code to their modifications so that the entire community could
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benefit. They worked with the letter but not the spirit of the law.
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Investigation on the part of the authors however, led to the fact that the
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right of public performance was one of the rights normally restricted to
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copyright holders, AND that computer programs, specifically video games and
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interactive ones such as Legend of the Green Dragon were considered to be
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publically performed if run from a public server.
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The new license restricts public performance of the work unless the source
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code of the modified work is made available on demand.
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In plain English, this means that if you put this game on a web server and
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allow people 'outside of a normal circle of family and its social
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acquaintances' to play there, then you are publically performing this work and
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MUST either a) make any and ALL changes which you make to the game available
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on request (note this doesn't have to be available via the online source
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display link, but they must be able to ask you for the code AND receive it
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in toto), b) make arrangements privately with the authors wherein they
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grant you a special license, or c) remove the code entirely from the machine.
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We do recognize that people want to have areas of their game which are theirs
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and theirs alone. To that end we will make the following exception to the
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normal requirements for source code distribution -- any module file which is
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not modified or derived from a module file included in the base distribution
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AND which does not require any other module files AND which does not require
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any modifications to the core code (code distributed with the base release)
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may be withheld at the authors discretion.
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For purposes of this license, base releases of this code include all versions
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created and distributed by Eric Stevens and JT Traub. In addition to these
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versions, the developers at Dragonprime.net are hereby granted a revokable
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authority to produce new distributions which enjoy the same restrictions and
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exceptions as this entire license. This authority may be revoked at any time,
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but such revocation will be purely proactive, and existing releases will still
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enjoy the full liberty of this license.
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Although revocation may be for any reason, the only foreseeable reason that such
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revocation would be enacted is if these distributions were discovered to contain
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module hooks designed to circumvent the spirit of this license. The intention is
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to let these developers continue where Eric and JT have left off.
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We also want to make very clear that version 0.9.7 (also known as version
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0.9.7+jt) was the final version released under the GPL. All versions,
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starting with the 0.9.8-prerelease code are only licensed under the Creative
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Commons license. We EXPLICITLY deny the right to import any code from a
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0.9.8-prerelease or later release into a 0.9.7 and earlier release. Allowing
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this would cause that imported code to be released under the GPL and that is
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not something we wish to allow. Authors of modifications to 0.9.7 will
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need to re-release their modifications as derivitives/modifications to
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0.9.8 code and place them under the same Creative Commons license. It must
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be done by the original author since only the original author has the right
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to change the copyright or license upon their work. [Additionally,
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reworking the modifications will be a good idea anyway as the mechanism for
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making modifications is substantially cleaner/clearer starting with the
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0.9.8-prerelease code.]
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