GPLv2 requires that I place a copyright notice and one more question

Hello,
The GPLv2 requires that I place a copyright notice along with any distribution of Xonotic. What exactly should be included in that notice? Also, I am in the process of creating a "release" version of Xonotic from the source available through the git repository. This is the final piece to include before it is ready. Once it is ready, would it be alright if I posted a link to my website where it can be downloaded? I will be hosting a server as well.

Thanks.

I strongly doubt this would be a very smart thing to do. Xonotic will be ready when it is ready, releasing versions that are not worthy of public viewing yet can only harm this project. What if a gaming website got directed to your website and did a review based on an incomplete Xonotic? It could potentially ruin the project before it even had its first 'real' release.

Git is Git for a reason, if people want to see what's going on with Xonotic they will need to take that 'hard' route. Besides which, what you upload today will be outdated tomorrow.

Yes, please refrain from making any statements or providing any downloads that could be interpreted as "official" Xonotic statements or downloads, unless prior approval by the Xonotic Team.

If you want to offer a hosting server for the first release, please contact -Z- (at least I think he'd be the right one to contact).

You are not supposed to build releases. What you currently can build IS NOT XONOTIC. It is an early development version. I appeal to your honesty that you will not release whatever you are building as a Xonotic release.

We are planning to do our own official beta releases very soon, though - we just need maps to get finished, which is waiting for a final word on the texture directory structure by tZork. Also, we have not decided upon which maps to include yet. If you now prematurely release a build, we probably will not agree on the selection of included maps, and thus your build would be highly incompatible with later official versions. It will only do harm.

The copyright notice already exists in the credits file, which however is still unfinished and lacks some contributors. This is also currently in the works.

Instead of releasing binary builds, you should cooperate with MrBougo on the automated git build system http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php...6&pid=9034 . It will allow having a Xonotic version that the user can always update to the most current state, and that only contains officially approved assets and nothing that may later cause incompatibilities with official servers or clients.

I can certainly see how an early release could harm the project which is why I thought to ask first. I will therefore refrain from publicly releasing my "release." I don't know if my bandwidth allowance with my server would allow me to host the initial release right away as I'm sure Xonotic would get a lot of attention with the first release, unless 150 GB would be enough. However, I could help seed the first release with bittorent. How can I get in touch with -Z-? Is there any other way I can help with this project? I would consider my programming skill to be amateur at best. I am however, fairly good at writing. Perhaps I could write a game manual.

If you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO, make _SURE_ that it's immediately obvious (lots of branding all over the place) that you are releasing an UNOFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT BUILD!

But please, rather do not. Just wait for a beta, there are good reasons why one is not out yet. (which hopefully get resolved soon?) Stabilized default balance, stabilized physics (game is fully broken without these, no point in a release), Conventions for map/texture/model/shader directory structures, enough good maps, music, map props, proper branding (conback still has a Nexuiz logo?) etc etc etc.

Sure, more mappers will be able to create maps a bit easier than by getting a full git clone (or will they in the end have any advantage from that? Easy build scripts exist already...). However, if any directory structures, models etc get moved about/removed/added, mappers might have to change a LOT in their maps (which still is subject to happen at any time, but should not happen AFTER a first release)

Edit: Yeah, what divVerent said.

You are certainly welcome to seed the first, or any release, or of course any official beta on bittorrent. It is not decided whether we will OFFICIALLY provide torrents, but even if not, someone will upload and seed a torrents of official releases, and doing so will be appreciated no matter who did it (and I will certainly seed too, no matter if the torrent is official or not, as long as it matches the official release package).

250GB will certainly not suffice if you are going to host a Xonotic release via HTTP it's just about 100 to 200 downloads, after all. But for a torrent, feel free to limit the bandwidth to that amount (200GB/month is about 80kb/sec, even if you just seed at that rate, you are a great backup/contributing seeder who does well at making sure the torrent won't go down).