Dagon Adventure Game Engine Open-Sourced

[intellivision]

I know the CDDL, I mean it's unusual for a game engine, since most free ones are GPL or at least GPL compatible. Often such licenses are used to declare a software open source but somewhat restricts code interoperability with other projects. As already suggested ZFS is under CDDL which make it incompatible with others OSes (BSDs and Linux) possibly in the hope they could gain some free work but that it cannot be used to improve other projects.

Well, for a game engine it wouldn't really be an issue, unless you wanted to import code from or to a GPL project.
Linking, which is something that is done the majority of a time with a game engine, can be done with software under any license, from the public domain to proprietary.

Also AgustinCordes, if you were considering making your code available to the greatest audience, you could dual license your project under the CDDL and the LGPL v2.1
That would ensure that your code can be used in GPL projects, if that's what you want.

[oibaf]

MPL 2.0 looks a much better choice, being GPL compatible, see also http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-...n.html#MPL-2.0 and also used by some well know projects (Firefox).

That would be great .

[AgustinCordes]

Without getting into a potentially flamy discussion, I have issues with GNU and don't want to support them. Sorry. Plus, dual licensing often leads to confusion, so I wouldn't want to go there either.

If you feel MPL 2.0 is friendlier and GPL-compatibility is a plus, then I'll go ahead and relicense!

[Feared]

Without getting into a potentially flamy discussion, I have issues with GNU and don't want to support them. Sorry. Plus, dual licensing often leads to confusion, so I wouldn't want to go there either.

If you feel MPL 2.0 is friendlier and GPL-compatibility is a plus, then I'll go ahead and relicense!

I have issues with the GPL license as well, and while I agree it's best to steer away from GPL I think you should stay with your current license CDDL. I don't really see any benefit of re-licensing to the MPL. Maybe you should think about it a little more before you jump to another license too quickly, seems a little short sighted. Good luck with your project, I may take a peek into your engine and game some time if I get the time.

[mether]

Without getting into a potentially flamy discussion, I have issues with GNU and don't want to support them. Sorry. Plus, dual licensing often leads to confusion, so I wouldn't want to go there either.

If you feel MPL 2.0 is friendlier and GPL-compatibility is a plus, then I'll go ahead and relicense!

IMO, LGPL fits your purpose just fine. Picking that license doesn't involve supporting GNU in any real sense. Plently of people including Linus picked GNU licenses because the license was a good fit regardless of the politics.

[oibaf]

CDDL is a license written by Sun for their own purposes. According to someone (see more info on wikipedia) CDDL was written with the specific goal of GPL-incompatibility.

On the other hand MPL 2.0 was written over a period of 21 months in a public process that included extensive feedback from a variety of people (see their FAQ and also wikipedia) and has a goal of compatibility with both the Apache License and (L)GPL.

CDDL incompatibility leads to some problems in the past, I just remember what happened to cdrtools. See also this for a recent license incompatibility problem (this was with GPL licenses but the point is that license incompatibility eventually leads to these sort of problems). For practical purposes I think it's better to use a wider compatible license so MPL 2.0 is preferable IMO. LGPL is also a good choice.

Other than that, having the engine open source, whatever the license, is anyway a great news .

[jaggers]

So, the consensus here is that everyone agrees that MPL 2.0 is either completely equivalent or better than CDDL. Feared thinks it's not worth the trouble (but is not in any way opposed), and everyone else would like to see MPL 2.0?

I'm also in the MPL 2.0 camp. I would like to have the choice to produce a fully-GPL work based on Dagon, if I choose (in particular, there is a lot of room for high-quality educational tools for children in an immersive environment).

I also want first-person adventure gaming to flourish on Linux through strong commercial investment... and a healthy community composed of both will help ensure it's longevity.

They are in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign, however. I feel that Agust?n ought not mess with the licensing until the project closes. If he can relicense Dagon under MPL 2.0 in a couple of weeks, I'd be pretty happy. That doesn't even preclude looking into it now, since a license-only change is nothing to do with the code itself.

[GreatEmerald]

I'm with Rahul. LGPL sounds just what is needed here. It is not as restrictive towards developers as GPLs are. But yes, MPL 2.0 (but not earlier) is a decent choice as well

They are in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign, however. I feel that Agust?n ought not mess with the licensing until the project closes. If he can relicense Dagon under MPL 2.0 in a couple of weeks, I'd be pretty happy. That doesn't even preclude looking into it now, since a license-only change is nothing to do with the code itself.

I do believe that it's a fairly major concern. Relicensing while the campaign is ongoing may very well increase the number of people interested. As it is, CDDL is known for being a way to diplomatically say "screw you, free software", and that definitely does not sit well with some people.

[LightBit]

IMO, LGPL fits your purpose just fine. Picking that license doesn't involve supporting GNU in any real sense. Plently of people including Linus picked GNU licenses because the license was a good fit regardless of the politics.

LGPL is different than CDDL and MPL 2, because it doesn't allow static linking with incompatible license.

[oibaf]

LGPL is different than CDDL and MPL 2, because it doesn't allow static linking with incompatible license.

This is not correct. It is allowed if you provide linkable object files.