Re: [Nel] NeL's GPL status

[Damon Trask]

> Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 18:32:33 +0200
> From: Cedrik Zamo<address@hidden>
> Subject: RE: [Nel] NeL's GPL status
> To: "Developer's list for the NeL platform" <address@hidden>
> Message-ID:
>         <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="us-ascii"
>
> > A friend of mine said that GPL is interpreted that if you link, call or
> use
> > GPL'd code in any fashion in a piece of software intended for public
> > distribution, that you must include *all* the source code of the 
> intended
> > software, even if the GPL parts are very small/minor.
>
>
> so where can we download ryzom's client and server source code ?  :D

I was reading up on GPL and discovered that the original holder of the GPL'd 
software is not obligated to release the source of products or software 
based on their own GPL-based source.
Which means that even if Ryzom uses the NeL server-side code, Nevrax is not 
required to release this (which would be the case anyways since it's 
server-side and isn't being distributed).

As for the Ryzom client, it's my understanding that the client doesn't use 
NeL code. There is no client released with the NeL packages we have 
available, so I'm assuming that Nevrax has coded the Ryzom client from 
scratch. If this is the case, then it's not under GPL at all.

Bottom line? Don't expect to see the Ryzom server/client source anytime 
soon, if ever.

On a related note, got a question for anyone from Nevrax on this list.
Is there any chance that the RAID sub-engine for Ryzom might ever be 
released? A feature like that would be dammed useful to the project I'm 
heading up.

***

> Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 07:01:11 +0000
> From: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [Nel] Re: NeL's GPL status
> To: Developer's list for the NeL platform <address@hidden>
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Fri, Jul 09, 2004 at 08:15:03PM -0700, Damon Trask wrote:
> > So in essence if I wanted to make a game using NeL, I can expect that 
> I'm
> > likely going to need to release the source to any software which is
> > distributed, namely the client-side software?
>
> Yeah, pretty much.
>
> > It does a bit. If I used NeL for a commercial game I'd have to release 
> the
> > source, but that wouldn't automaticly mean that said game would be easy 
> to
> > hack/cheat/etc?
> > Is that about the sum of things?
>
> Correct, players would be able to manipulate the netcode either way, but
> at least with open source you may get some bored players who make
> positive improvements as well.  It all comes down to not trusting the 
> client
> data in the end unfortunately.

Okay, thanks for the clarification there. Makes NeL rather attractive again 
as a possible engine for our project.

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