newtonSDK Licensing

[hicham]

Hi All,

I am trying to package newSDK for Fedora, but the license says that is it not redistributable. Is there any chance to make the license less restrictive some day ?

[Julio Jerez]

what do you mean? you can do what even you want with the library.

[Stucuk]

Ignore the Doc folder. Its been wrongly included in the Linux and Mac SDK's (And Julio still hasn't removed it....), if you look closely at the files included with it you will notice its for 1.53 and not 2.0 . There is no License or Offline Documentation for 2.0.

[hicham]

I plan to package libNewton for fedora, but I need a license that allows redistribution, which is not clear in the license.

[hicham]

Redistribution in both binary and source forms.

[Julio Jerez]

thsi is waht every sorce file seys

Code: Select all

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Name:        ColladaImport.cpp
// Purpose:     
// Author:      Julio Jerez
// Modified by:
// Created:     22/05/2010 07:45:05
// RCS-ID:     
// Copyright:   Copyright (c) <2010> <Newton Game Dynamics>
// License:     
// This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
// warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
// arising from the use of this software.
//
// Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
// including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it
// freely
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[Julio Jerez]

I am trying to package newSDK for Fedora, but the license says that is it not redistributable

where does the license say "Not Redistributable"

[hicham]

LICENSE AGREEMENT
Newton Game Dynamics Limited grants to the LICENSEE and the LICENSEE hereby accepts a perpetual
nontransferable and nonexclusive license to use and distribute the SOFTWARE, for any purpose.
In addition, the following conditions apply:

1) The LICENSEE may not use the SOFTWARE to reverse engineer the computer algorithm used by the SOFTWARE.

How to reverse engineer the a program distributed in source form ?

2) The origin of the SOFTWARE must not be misrepresented; If the LICENSEE uses the SOFTWARE to distribute
a product, the LICENSEE must not claim that He or She wrote the original SOFTWARE.
3) The LICENSEE agrees to credit the use of the Newton Game Dynamics in any program information,
"About" dialogs, credits screens, program notes or instructions and shrink-wrapped packaging.

That is fair

4) The LICENSEE may not redistribute the SOFTWARE, except as part of a compiled software program that is
not itself a physics library.

Well that is the blocker for me.

5) The LICENSEE agrees to notify http://www.newtondynamics.com of any products, commercial, shareware or free
that incorporate the Newton Game Dynamics technology.

No problem

6) It is strictly prohibited to use this software without the explicit permission of the original creator,
for work that its only purpose is comparison or benchmarking against similar technologies.

Well, that is a blocker again

[hicham]

libNewton.so source code isn't available ?

[Julio Jerez]

Those points are from the old 1.53 license but I do not think we will agree on anything.
I think you are confused with the Newton Library. Newton is not an opens source library.

Long time ago, I decided that I will never be able to satisfy everyone.
I have no interest in competition with any other Libraries, and I am not a teacher.
Therefore I do not have to out open source anyone.
I am just a run of the mill guy with a hobby.

Maybe you will better serve using one of the Open sources Library that have the blessing of the Open source community.

[hicham]

I was trying to package Penumbra since it is open sourced, but I was faced to this.

I hope you will sometime do like Quake, ie, release old version's source to the public

Best Regards

Hicham

[Stucuk]

Ignore the Doc folder. Its been wrongly included in the Linux and Mac SDK's (And Julio still hasn't removed it....), if you look closely at the files included with it you will notice its for 1.53 and not 2.0 . There is no License or Offline Documentation for 2.0.

@hicham: Why did you ignore my post. I stated that 2.0 doesn't have any license agreement and that everything in the Doc folder which is only found in the Linux and Mac SDK's was from 1.53 and has been mistakenly left over from 1.53 .

I hope you will sometime do like Quake, ie, release old version's source to the public

Source code would be useless to 99% of people as most people won't understand Physics enough to be able to do anything with it. It would also mean people would use different peoples versions which Julio wouldn't be able to support and would take people away from giving Julio bug reports. So Open Source'ing old versions would mean that less people would report bugs to Julio (As not everyone would be using the latest version he released) making it a more buggy library.

[hicham]

Ignore the Doc folder. Its been wrongly included in the Linux and Mac SDK's (And Julio still hasn't removed it....), if you look closely at the files included with it you will notice its for 1.53 and not 2.0 . There is no License or Offline Documentation for 2.0.

@hicham: Why did you ignore my post. I stated that 2.0 doesn't have any license agreement and that everything in the Doc folder which is only found in the Linux and Mac SDK's was from 1.53 and has been mistakenly left over from 1.53 .

Sorry, I didn't mean to.

I hope you will sometime do like Quake, ie, release old version's source to the public

Source code would be useless to 99% of people as most people won't understand Physics enough to be able to do anything with it. It would also mean people would use different peoples versions which Julio wouldn't be able to support and would take people away from giving Julio bug reports. So Open Source'ing old versions would mean that less people would report bugs to Julio (As not everyone would be using the latest version he released) making it a more buggy library.

Well, this is not always the case, third party contributions will help spot eventual problems in the code, even if it is not necessarily a physics issue. As for reporting bugs, all OpenSource projects require that the bug should be reproduced with the official binaries, so I think that having other versions of libNewton isn't a real issue.

[Stucuk]

Well, this is not always the case, third party contributions will help spot eventual problems in the code, even if it is not necessarily a physics issue.

The difference is that Physics libraries are mainly physics and not generic code that could be found in most applications.

As for reporting bugs, all OpenSource projects require that the bug should be reproduced with the official binaries, so I think that having other versions of libNewton isn't a real issue.

Thats not what happens with Open Source projects. Open Source projects are generally released with a license agreement that states that people can do whatever they want as long as they credit the original authors and release there work under the same license. So people would just submit bugs to whoever is maintaining whatever version they are using. As well some would come to Julio for support rather than the guy who is maintaining a particular branch. Bottom line is less people are likely to report bugs on the official version if people create there own branches(Which is likely to happen with something like a physics library).

In any case there is no need for Open Sourcing Newton. Julio fixes most major bugs within a week at most. Unless Open Sourcing a project would have benefits to the users of that project, then it shouldn't become Open Source in my oppinion. Open Source doesn't make a project better by default.

[Carli]

Open Source doesn't make a project better by default.

Thats right.
I experienced that those who want the project be opensource leave the project after it is.
There is no difference between a closedsource and an opensource project in team management - in both, the developers code the code, not the community.
But for me its better to have my project opensource so no one can judge me to be "evil commercial"