Xonotic + Warsow

Legally yes, but it doesn't make it any less ethically wrong stealing the content and it will just start confusion for new players coming either to Xonotic or Warxon. (they would start wonder if the either is the successor or predecessor of one another)

Legally yes, but it doesn't make it any less ethically wrong stealing the content and it will just start confusion for new players coming either to Xonotic or Warxon. (they would start wonder if the either is the successor or predecessor of one another)

Is this ethical?

Over the summer of 2009 divverent, morphed, and various unnamed contributors conspired with each other on the topic of a media fork of nexuiz with limited code patches such as the addition of the removed weapons. Talk eventually trended towards a full fork of Nexuiz into an extended project.

In 2012 the influence of a single developer known by the nickname Samual had grown to a degree where he had a stranglehold on the project. All decisions had to pass through him, and his answer was usually,if not always, no. Then near May 2012 Samual made a sweeping change in the xonotic quake c code involving the rewrite of the message passing code. This convinced some projects that were tracking the xonotic git repo to break off altogether. Since that time most code changes have been of the make-work variety, such as to highlight official servers above all others, and very few new features have been added. Feature development has moved towards modifications and forks of Xonotic.

I guess you do not consider mess between Nexuiz classic and Xonotic here because you assume Nexuiz to be dead. I can tell you the same about xonotic

Edit: quotes are from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xonotic#History which seems to be completely removed just now. cache - http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/se...ki/Xonotic

While I do not consider reusing assets of a GPL'd project to be ethically wrong (that's the whole POINT of the license, d'oh!), I do not think that coming to the Xonotic forums and calling it "dead" is a good way to make a start here :o)

Could you give a reference to where the quoted passages come from? In my opinion they sound highly biased. Though it has become sort of a tradition to blame everything on Samual, it's not that binary in fact.

Edit: oh I found it. That's a very low move, editing Xonotic's wikipedia entry so that it becomes a very negative touch. Edit happened on 18.05.2014, as far as I can see, by an anonymous editor (which happens to be a troll very well known to Xonotic). Sorry to say, but Xonotic's wikipedia page has been corrupted.

http://www.xonotic.org/the-game/faq/#Wha...rom_Nexuiz

tl;dr: Nexuiz founder (was not around for years) sold (also) the name "Nexuiz", without telling the developers, taking all the cash, thus a new game was found - Xonotic. So most things are from there as a basis.
Weapon models kinda never changed, because it's hard to find modeler.

Artwork is really a topic of its own in my opinion.

http://www.xonotic.org/the-game/faq/#Wha...rom_Nexuiz

I guess it has to be put into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xonotic#History

Hahaha, that deleted history is hilarious. Its true about the slow development though.

extone - unless you are going to incorporate at least some Xonotic game mechanics I don't think people here are gonna care.

for once i agree with esr

Barely modifying a game that nobody plays. ESPORTS HERE YOU COME.

Legally yes, but it doesn't make it any less ethically wrong stealing the content and it will just start confusion for new players coming either to Xonotic or Warxon. (they would start wonder if the either is the successor or predecessor of one another)

You're missing the point of FLOSS there. I would argue that it's rather ethically wrong to let people freely use your content only to judge them when they do (for example by qualifying a derivative work of theft).

I think the one ethical issue with this work is that extone appears to intend to mix GPL content with non-copyleft content. This goes against the principles of the GPL (i.e. the reason why GPL is not another permissive BSD-type license). While this combo is (debatably) not illegal because there's no bundling, it doesn't feel right to me.

Them nicking your weapons

You cant say it about GPL content. Most of weapon models came to xonotic from Nexuis classic

I'm not sure what you are referring to, but if your point is that we shouldn't blame others just copying our weapon models since we ourselves "took" them from Nexuiz, too, then let me remind you that Xonotic is in fact the successor of Nexuiz so we kinda inherited those models rather than "taking" them.

But of course you are free to take any content from Xonotic including weapon models provided you adhere to the GPL license such content was released under. I personally have absolutely no problem with what you're doing, I think it looks interesting and I like the looks of the qfusion engine. However, given the lack of players, I consider building a community around a free arena FPS the biggest challenge and unless you know some magic around attracting new players I fear just making a very good game isn't enough to lead it to success. That's why I am rather sceptical about whether you'll be able to keep that project up - but good luck from me!

I'm not blaming. But its not creative at all. It doesn't make the game stand out as its own unique brand. Causes confusion. Further saturation of the arena fps market of a game nobody is going to play after a few months of release.

Nex project is going pretty well, even though it can be somewhat costly to pay out of pocket for modellers and so on. The goal to success beyond a good game is marketing it not to Quake people, and more to the general fps gamer. That's what builds your audience. Titanfall proves people like cool parkour type of moves in FPS. The good thing for us is that we went with a more UT based inspiration which is much like that.

If investors didn't want full control of our game, we'd have had many investors ages ago. Its just we want to keep our integrity.

I'm not sure what you are referring to, but if your point is that we shouldn't blame others just copying our weapon models since we ourselves "took" them from Nexuiz, too, then let me remind you that Xonotic is in fact the successor of Nexuiz so we kinda inherited those models rather than "taking" them.

As I know (I might be wrong) Xonotic has one particular owner (different from Nexuiz one) what means that this guy can call xonotic any way he want - successor of Reflex or predecessor of Reborn. It also means term inheritance is not applicable here. He just follows GPL terms the same way I do.

My point is I dont actually understand why Nex guys pissed off by Warxon. IMO even existance of Warxon will increase popularity of project Nex and vice versa.

Anyway thanks for your attitude towards Warxon

To clarify, my opinions don't reflect the whole team by any means. Just because I express an opinion doesn't mean the other team members express the same.

Will the existence of Warxon really have an impact on our popularity? Our audience aims are completely different. The UT people are interested in us, but the Quake people aren't. We aren't going for that model.

They want a Quake based gameplay model, we want a game that will actually be successful.

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I'm not saying Warxon is bad, I'm just saying it's kind of lazy game design to not use any original art assets to your game.

You're missing the point of FLOSS there. I would argue that it's rather ethically wrong to let people freely use your content only to judge them when they do (for example by qualifying a derivative work of theft).

I think the one ethical issue with this work is that extone appears to intend to mix GPL content with non-copyleft content. This goes against the principles of the GPL (i.e. the reason why GPL is not another permissive BSD-type license). While this combo is (debatably) not illegal because there's no bundling, it doesn't feel right to me.

Yes, to me though artwork is a whole other saga that needs licenses free in other senses than code. As for bundling different works with different licenses in the same distribution I don't really see the problem, as long these works are all allowed to be distributed freely, just seems most logical and I think Sauerbraten do mix content with different licenses but I don't know the specifics.

I think the one ethical issue with this work is that extone appears to intend to mix GPL content with non-copyleft content. This goes against the principles of the GPL (i.e. the reason why GPL is not another permissive BSD-type license). While this combo is (debatably) not illegal because there's no bundling, it doesn't feel right to me.

Well, GPL allows commercial use what means that there are a lot of commercial products mixing GPL content with proprietary one otherwise you are not gonna be able to sell it.
There are many games mixing licenses like Redeclipse, Cube 2: Sauerbraten, Unvanquished, Warsow, even upcoming Reborn is obviously gonna do it since its engine is Cube2 based
Many commercial products does not even tell that they are using GPL code, because AFAIK it so not required by GPL

Well you don't have to disclaim in cat sized letters on the web site "THIS CONTAINS GPL CODE", but you for sure need to state which assets are licensed under GPL in the software license. After all, GPL means you can't relicense so you have to perpetuate the GPL, for which you need to identify the parts that are GPL.

Well, GPL allows commercial use what means that there are a lot of commercial products mixing GPL content with proprietary one otherwise you are not gonna be able to sell it.
There are many games mixing licenses like Redeclipse, Cube 2: Sauerbraten, Unvanquished, Warsow, even upcoming Reborn is obviously gonna do it since its engine is Cube2 based
Many commercial products does not even tell that they are using GPL code, because AFAIK it so not required by GPL

Nope. GPL is not as permissive as you think. See for example this 2009 lawsuit (and there have been others before that)
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2357122,00.asp

Sauerbraten's Cube 2 engine is the only part of it that is free software. Moreover, it is ZLib-licensed, not GPL. ZLib is a so-called permissive free software license, which does not impose any restrictions on the licensing of derivative works or on bundling as the GPL does. That's why they distribute their downloads as a single package.

Nope. GPL is not as permissive as you think. See for example this 2009 lawsuit (and there have been others before that)
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2357122,00.asp

If I understand correctly in this case companies was sued not for "not telling that they used GPL code" but for "not showing it". And this article assumes that these companies actually didnt tell that they used GPL code before it was found.

GPL says that if you reuse assets licensed to you under GPL, then you have to license them under GPL as well. If you are not telling stuff you release contains assets licensed under GPL, then you are obviously not licensing it under GPL (which would require the act to state "this is licensed under GPL"), and thereby violating the GPL license.

GPL says that if you reuse assets licensed to you under GPL, then you have to license them under GPL as well. If you are not telling stuff you release contains assets licensed under GPL, then you are obviously not licensing it under GPL (which would require the act to state "this is licensed under GPL"), and thereby violating the GPL license.

In former case companies didnt tell that their code is GPL but it still was proved to be GPL. Also their code may still have GPL header even if not released

Wouldn't simply bundling a copy of the GPL with his game stating and providing a statement for each GPL work that it is licensed under that?

Only thing that irks me is that nor Xonotic or Warsow is mentioned, even once, at the Warxon page. If you're lucky enough to find donator project for both engine and art assets, i think it be only natural to show your appreciation for it by mentioning where it came from.

Other than that, gl & hf! Its always interesting to see another take on an arena shooter; sooner or later someone just has to find a recipe for a viable one with all these variations popping out

I don't see the point of this. Why not help out the Xonotic project instead?

Only thing that irks me is that nor Xonotic or Warsow is mentioned, even once, at the Warxon page.

Well, both mentioned exactly once at http://warxon.com/about

In former case companies didnt tell that their code is GPL but it still was proved to be GPL. Also their code may still have GPL header even if not released

You will have to identify which parts of code are licensed under GPL. The whole point of licensing is that you make it transparent which rights you obtain when purchasing or otherwise acquiring a piece of software. If you're not identifying which parts of the software are GPL, they are not licensed under GPL.

It's not a question of whether the derivative work has to be "licensed as GPL". What happened there is that the copyright holders automatically grant a license to their work (here, busybox) under the terms of the GPL to anyone who might want to grab the software or its source code (for example, the vendors who are now being sued). These vendors failed to comply with those terms by redistributing the work without respecting the conditions stated by the GPL. AFAIK, this constitutes copyright infringement because the vendors stepped out of the boundaries that were defined by the copyright holders. (AFAIK again,) it's no different from stealing a copyrighted work, except that in this case said copyright is "weakened" by the automatic license.

Failing to state that the software is GPL (here, within the UI of the vendors' electronics I guess) means that the rules have been breached. It would not be sufficient to just supply the text of the GPL, they would also have to comply with source code requests to the (possibly modified) source codes of their GPL-licensed components. If they don't take the license seriously enough to include its text and let their users know about their own rights w/r/t the software, I really have to wonder whether they were ready to comply with the rest of the license.

extone, I don't understand what you mean when you talk about assumptions done in the article. It seems very clear here. There is infringement because the license terms are not displayed even though they should be, in a very specific way explained in the text. Basically, it should be visible somewhere in the user interface or in an accompanying document that the work is licensed under GPL. It can't be an a posteriori statement, it has to be clear from the start, which it was not.

EDIT: Anyway, I think we're going off topic there The point of the matter is that GPL is a so-called copyleft license, and requires all derivative works to be licensed under the same terms. Also, there are restrictions on bundling interdependent components when one component is GPL-licensed and the other has incompatible terms. It could be argued that serving a download with a GPL-licensed engine and a bunch of proprietary assets violates the GPL, which is why it's important to supply engine and assets as separate downloads. Separate packages are (debatably) compliant with the GPL, but still ethically wrong to some copyleft-minded people.

What conserns me is splitting of the "100 competeive players" into so many of the games. In the end, it ends up being having the games with nano-communities, none of which are sufficient. If those playeres were diviged among a smaller number of games, then it would have beeen better. The same appplies to developers as well, united together those people could achive more together rather then trying ot pull their own little loads themselves. In that case, the communities, or even good if One Onish opensource Fps would be better with larger, more activre community. You might say that a larger community does not guarantee a a more active one, but if you have more people to begin with, there are bigger chances of finding active, dedicated people within it. And I think that active people will multiply, and not just add, and that will be mean that the are more productiver together.

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Only thing that irks me is that nor Xonotic or Warsow is mentioned, even once, at the Warxon page. If you're lucky enough to find donator project for both engine and art assets, i think it be only natural to show your appreciation for it by mentioning where it came from.

Other than that, gl & hf! Its always interesting to see another take on an arena shooter; sooner or later someone just has to find a recipe for a viable one with all these variations popping out

Well, obviously, they dont wont to advertise us, and possibly loose players to us.

I don't see the point of this. Why not help out the Xonotic project instead?

Personall pride, I assume. That and the thinking that their ideas are better and more important then anyone elses.

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"Warxon gameplay has roots in such games as Quake and Unreal"

- Wep, and no mention of the closer "relatives".

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Interesting how they used SawWar's armour system, but with painted Xon models.

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Nailgun (NG): Fires with 12 nail projectiles which can bounce off the walls 2 times. Every nail has 8 damage, reload time - 0.8 sec.
Shotgun (SG): Instant damage gun. Fires with 30 pellets over long distanc. Nevertherless its pattern makes it usefull only on shot to mid range distance. Reload time - 0.95 sec.

Interesting how they have two almost identical weapons. I doubt we would have allowed it. Althought maybee the "Hagar"(Nailgun) is modeled after Crylink?

We don't have a Nailgun ;o Thx god.