[IGDA_indies] the LGPL

[Thomas H. Buscaglia]

Actually, what you are looking for is an iron clan guarantee, not a 
lawyer.  Unfortunately, the interpretation of the law is never as cut and 
dried as most people think.  It tends toward fuzzy and more often than not, 
the meaning of any law or contract is debatable.  In fact, this is how 
lawyers make a living - if everything was clear and concise, lawyers 
wouldn't have anything to do...<g>.   IMHO, any lawyer who tell you 
definitively "what the law is" is probably BSing.

With that as a disclaimer I will admit, I can not give you all the sort of 
answer you are looking for here.   In part because my technical 
understanding of this stuff is limited.  And in part because I have not yet 
encountered a dispute in these areas and, like any good lawyer, I only 
research what applies to my current clients' needs.  And aside from some 
discussions with the gamebeavers - www.gamebeavers.com - who are putting 
together a shared and commonly owned game asset library, I have yet to 
delve into the complexities of open source and shared source licenses, 
though I suspect I will have to eventually.

But Brian's quote from their site seems to lay out the manner in which the 
library can be used.  I suppose the easiest thing to do might be to contact 
whoever is responsible for enforcing the license agreement and asking them 
their opinion.  Though I suspect that they merely patched together a 
license in a way that you might patch together code some from here (open 
source) and some original text as well to get it sort of like what they 
think they need...

There are other concerns that should be taken into account.  If you intend 
to self distribute your game or do a freeware thing, these open and shared 
source libraries are fine.  But if you have intentions to license or sell 
your game to a publisher, you should probably stick with licensed 
commercial code base and original IP.  Otherwise the publisher will be very 
hesitant (at best) to consider your project, no matter how compelling the 
content.  Of course, open source, is fine for the demo, so long as you can 
redo it for a commercial version.

GL & HF!

Tom B





At 01:48 AM 8/31/2004, you wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: indies-bounces at igda.org
> > [mailto:indies-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Brandon J. Van Every
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2004 12:51 AM
> > To: Indie SIG mailing list
> > Subject: [IGDA_indies] the LGPL
> >
>
> > What we really want is a legally definitive
> > website, not the SDL "Sure, this will work"
> > website.
>
>   Unfortunately what I think your looking for is a lawyer.  I've yet to have
>found anything online other than the licenses themselves to be "legally
>definitive".  Short of that you should be safe following the instructions on
>the SDL site.
>
>   Tom Spilman
>   Co-owner | Programmer
>   www.sickheadgames.com
>
>
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>indies mailing list
>indies at igda.org
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