GtkRadiant is GPL'ed... safe to use it now?

#1 "GtkRadiant is GPL'ed... safe to use it now?"

Yes.

#2 Someone just needs to email id or the qeradiant maintainers for official confirmation and post their response in the GG forums.

toddh@idsoftware.com
http://www.qeradiant.com/?data=staff

It is pretty safe to assume that the GPL opens up the app for commercial use... but if you want to know for sure you will have to go to the source unless you can find something in the documentation which states it specifically.

-Unk

#3 The damned thing is GPL, ok. This is official. You don't need confirmation on the license. You don't need to bother the people at id Software.

#4 I would imagine it's only officially GPL if it says so in the EULA,
regardless of what other pages & blog posts may say.

#5 It's GPL as long as the individual source files have one of those this-is-under-the-GPL headers and it's distributed along with the license.

Quote:
/*
Copyright (C) 1999-2006 Id Software, Inc. and contributors.
For a list of contributors, see the accompanying CONTRIBUTORS file.

This file is part of GtkRadiant.

GtkRadiant is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

GtkRadiant is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with GtkRadiant; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
*/

Looks like it qualifies to me. But feel free to check it out for yourself :)

#6 @Josh: Hey man... I am really not trying to make an issue out of this.

I am not saying you are wrong. I am 99% sure you are right but preffer to be 100% sure with these things. It is called due diligence.

As mentioned in the previous thread, I didn't see anything in the EULA specifing anything allowing for commercial use via third party applications. The license.txt information included with the GtkRadiant-GPL.zip release in fact states:

"2. Prohibitions. You, whether directly or indirectly, shall not do any of the following acts:
e. in any other manner and through any medium whatsoever commercially exploit the Software or use the Software for any commercial purpose

3. Permitted Uses. ID grants to you the non-exclusive and limited right to distribute copies of the Software free of charge for non-commercial purposes by electronic means only and the non-exclusive and limited right to use the Software to create your own modifications for operation only with the full version of the software game QUAKE III ARENA"

It could easily be that the license info in the zip file is out of date and id is preparing updated licensing info but seeing as you have to agree with the attached documentation in order to install the software it seems like a real limitation at this time.

You guys are going to do what you want regardless... but my advice stands.

-Unk

#7 That is the old license and is not in the GPL release. The GPL release is a source code release. There is nothing to install, you have to build it from the source files. I am sure there will soon be or already are binary builds of the GPL version. The next binary build from the qeradiant.com site will be under the GPL. Though, you don't have to wait for them to compile it for you.

Here is the LICENSE information from the GPL release:

Quote:

LICENSE ( last update: Wed Feb 8 17:16:40 CST 2006 )
-----------------------------------------------------

There are 3 license types used throughout GtkRadiant source code.

BSD - modified Berkeley Software Distribution license
( each BSD licensed source file starts with the appropriate header )
LGPL - GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1
( see LGPL at the root of the tree )
GPL - GNU General Public License
( see GPL at the root of the tree )

How do I check which license applies to a given part of the source code?

Each source file in the tree comes with a license header which explains what
license applies. To sum up shortly:

GPL: ( except some files contributed by Loki Software under BSD license )
GtkRadiant Core
GtkRadiant Modules
GtkRadiant Libraries
Quake III Tools
Quake II Tools
Background2D Plugin
HydraToolz Plugin

BSD:
JPEG Library
MD5 Library
DDS Library
PicoModel Library
PrtView Plugin

LGPL
BobToolz Plugin
GenSurf Plugin

#8 Yeah sounds like ID Software and friends have some licensing issues to clean up first before its considered officialy under GPL as in they actually do a release with the GPL provided. Once that is done to make it legally under the GPL according to the General Public License (GPL) then yes in fact you are allowed to use it for commericial purpose because there is a clause in the GPL that allows you to use GPL software to create work which doesn't fall under the GPL which is the reason why when you use GNU C Compiler to compile your binaries and such don't fall under the GPL, but instead falls under whatever license you specify or that came with the source code in which you just compiled.

#9 Yah, I think the problem we are having is that both of the licenses we are talking about are included in the current GtkRadiant-GPL.zip.

@Josh: I am talking about the included EULA (GPL\GtkRadiant\setup\license.rtf / license.txt). You are talking about the license file stating that GPL applies to GtkRadiant (GPL\GtkRadiant\license).

It looks like it may just be a poor packaging problem. If the EULA is no longer valid it should be removed and replaced with the GPL.

I love radiant too and really want to use this as a GG tool (at least until we get constructor). =P

-Unk

#10 If you download the source and see a GPL license applied to the source, then you're fine. If there are more licenses then it just means the program may be under a dual license.

If you download the correct release you will see that the source has 3 seperate licenses applied to it, a copy of each is included in the package

Quote:
BSD - modified Berkeley Software Distribution license
( each BSD licensed source file starts with the appropriate header )
LGPL - GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1
( see LGPL at the root of the tree )
GPL - GNU General Public License
( see GPL at the root of the tree )

You just have to download the correct version, I've put up a TDN page that covers what versions you need of the packages, where to get them and how to build them.
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/DIF/GTKRadiant

So in short, it is GPL'd, you can use the output of the program for any purpose you want. Your only obligation is to release any source code changes you make IF and ONLY IF you release those changes in a binary format to the public. If you change the source for your own purposes only and never release an updated binary to the public you don't afaik have to release the source.

#11 GPL is not a license for providing free software - it's a license designed to keep the software's source code open and available (hence open source).

While I don't claim to be a legal expert, version 2 of the GPL license clearly states that the license does not extend to usage of the software or to files generated by the software:

Quote:"Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program)."

What does this mean? It means the Radiant commercial license is still in full effect and refers to the usage of Radiant, just as the GPL license is in full effect and refers to the code - ei: only the source is free, not usage of the product. I've seen no indication from Id that this has changed.

This type of licensing is extremely common nowadays as more and more open source companies are trying to build businesses out of their products (understandably). The best example of this is MySQL, though it uses a dual licensing scheme - and no it's not free either. ;)

#12 John: MySQL is distibuted under dual licensing terms for a specific reason. To remove the burnden of distributing source code changes when you distribute a binary version of Mysql or a derivative work.

There is nothing stopping a company using the gpl'd version of MySQL for commericially gain. They just need to release any source code changes they make to MySQL should they decide to distribute a new binary version to their customers.

The reason the people pay for the alternative license rather than GPL is that it makes sense for their business model. For example lets say I setup a business where I install MySQL at customers sites and provide support for that installation. I could do so profitably using either the GPL or alternative license. However if the key to my business was that I'd made a breaktrhough in DB technology and made mysql run 100000x faster, then GPL would not make sense, since the moment I install my updated binary on a customers machine, I would be obliged to provide source code on request. So instead my business would use the Alternative license that does not require source code changes to be released.

Or as another example, say I make an application that include mySQL as a part of it (to the point where it would be considered a derivative work and thus fall under the GPL if released), in this case it would again be in my interests to use purchase the alternative license instead of using the GPL one.

If you download a program source released under GPL and compile it yourself, then anything you create output wise cannot be limited in use. Since the GPL prohibits extra clauses been added and explicitly states it does not apply to the output of the program.

In order to restrict the use of anything output from the program (once you've built it) the code would have to include in the license a clause stating output is not allowed to be used commercially etc whicih would then mean the source is not GPL since you are adding clauses to the license which is forbidden. Instead you'd be distributing under a custom license which you would not be allowed to call "GPL" for legal reasons.

#13 Regardless of the MySQL example (which I did mention was dual license ;), the GPL license explicitly claims that usage is outside the scope of the license, and seeing as Id still maintains that Radiant is "free for non commercial use" - trying to use it for commercial game development is not something I would personally consider doing.

#14

Quote:In order to restrict the use of anything output from the program (once you've built it) the code would have to include in the license a clause stating output is not allowed to be used commercially etc whicih would then mean the source is not GPL since you are adding clauses to the license which is forbidden. Instead you'd be distributing under a custom license which you would not be allowed to call "GPL" for legal reasons.

@Gary: Exactly.

You cannot apply both the GPL and the id Commercial license at the same time. This isn't what dual licening means, it's one or the other.

#15 When the GPL states that the usage is not covered by the license, it means that works you create with a GPL's program are not automatically GPL'd as well. You can use a GPL'd program to create commercial works and such.

#16 My dual license comment was in regard to MySQL, not Radiant.

Until Id clears up their licensing ambiguity (ie multiple license files, one of which clearly states non-commercial) I don't think this is a good idea - definitely something I'll avoid.

#17 GtkRadiant has always been "open source." The source has always been avaliable to download and compile. It's not like source is now suddenly avaliable. However, previously it was covered under a custom license which disallowed commercial use.

If the intention were to disallow commercial use, why suddenly move to a new license when the existing license already did that?

I'm not trying to be inflammatory, I just don't think the extra license theory is consistent with every other GPL release that ID has done.

#18 Hah. Not only would it be inconsistent with every other GPL release from id Software, but every other GPL release in the world!

#19 At least since GPL2. That was a problem in version 1 of the GPL, but the FSF fixed that.

#20 You cannot add or subtract from the GPL license. Period. The end. If the proprietary id Software license is still applied to GTKRadiant, it is a seperate license... it CANNOT be combined with the GPL. That's the whole friggin' point.

Actually, wait, I think I figured it out. This is all in id Software's master plan.

1. They applied the GPL to all the code and told the world: "It's now GPL!". They cleverly don't mention that they intend to somehow GPL it and keep the old proprietary license in effect. Sneaky!

2. They s3kr3tly left the old license.rtf in the setup folder which was solely used by the installer. They don't directly apply this license to anything in the release. They just slip it in there, a ticking time bomb!

3. They plan to sue and sue hard and soon!