"galaxy gameworks" charging for a commercial licen

SDL Development
1

I think its a shame when companies rewrite the details of open source licensing just for their own profit and blame it on some technical details.

It’s true that statically linking is’nt the same as shared libraries, but they do meet the intent of the whole original reason for that clause in the lgpl license.
its the case of the letter of the law vs. the law. And Glaxy gameworks is taking advantage of some small technicality at the most.

The shame of it is is that whole purpose of including the shared library clause was to make open source code a little more paulable to the commercial user
while at the same time bring a lot more varied technologies to the open source world.

The lgpl needs to be looked at and revised taking into account static linking.

other vendors offering lgpl licenses state that compliance is the following.

Any modification to source code must be available on a server or version control system publicly reachable.
The natural objects from the build must be published along with the headers files.

But reading the galaxygameworks requirements it sounds like these provisions taken directly from the lgpl license would still violate the sdl license, in fact it sounds like if others do not want to make all the source available under the gpl portion of the license they have to pay a fee.

This is not an issue for me because anything of mine that uses sdl will be gpl, However I give galaxcy gameworks a f+ for there implementation and use of the lgpl. It puts a stain on the whole purpose of open source as far as I am concerned. And will slow adaption of SDL on an iphone .

I only hope there will be a new version of the lgpl and gpl that address this issue very soon.

Erik Yuzwa wrote:> Ahh I missed that, thanks Bill

I caught the link to the SDL site but not the reverse one :slight_smile:

Erik

** Sent from my iPhone so pls excuse any typos **

On 2010-02-16, at 4:01 PM, Bill Kendrick wrote:

On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 03:46:21PM -0700, Erik Yuzwa wrote:

Hey gang,

Just wondering if I missed a news release somewhere…

Came across “Galaxy Gameworks” which is apparently charging $500.00
for a commercial license to SDL 1.3

The commercial license grants you personal e-mail support as well as
SDL for the iPhone.

The language on the “about” page seems to imply that Sam runs Galaxy
Gameworks, yet nowhere on any of his pages I’ve found on google does
he mention “GG”…

Correct, that’s Sam. See, for example:
http://forums.libsdl.org/viewtopic.php?t=5166&sid=1cd8f77a7d20bded78828e45a341f120

And the FAQ that it links to:
http://www.galaxygameworks.com/license-FAQ.html

–
-bill!
Sent from my computer

SDL mailing list
SDL at lists.libsdl.org
http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org

SDL mailing list
SDL at lists.libsdl.org
http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org

2

Baaaasically… you’re an idiot.On Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:21:00 -0800 michelleC wrote:

3

Personally, I think a better solution would have been to just dual-license SDL as LGPL and MPL. MPL preserves the important part of the (L)GPL–the requirement that you publish any changes you make to the code so as to improve the work’s quality for everyone–without the viral nonsense that causes problems like this.>________________________________

From: michelleC
Subject: Re: [SDL] “galaxy gameworks” charging for a commercial licen

I think its a shame when companies rewrite the details of open source licensing just for their own profit and blame it on some technical details.

It’s true that statically linking is’nt the same as shared libraries, but they do meet the intent of the whole original reason for that clause in the lgpl license.
its the case of the letter of the law vs. the law. And Glaxy gameworks is taking advantage of some small technicality at the most.

The shame of it is is that whole purpose of including the shared library clause was to make open source code a little more paulable to the commercial user
while at the same time bring a lot more varied technologies to the open source world.

The lgpl needs to be looked at and revised taking into account static linking.

other vendors offering lgpl licenses state that compliance is the following.

Any modification to source code must be available on a server or version control system publicly reachable.
The natural objects from the build must be published along with the headers files.

But reading the galaxygameworks requirements it sounds like these provisions taken directly from the lgpl license would still violate the sdl license, in fact it sounds like if others do not want to make all the source available under the gpl portion of the license they have to pay a fee.

This is not an issue for me because anything of mine that uses sdl will be gpl, However I give galaxcy gameworks a f+ for there implementation and use of the lgpl. It puts a stain on the whole purpose of open source as far as I am concerned. And will slow adaption of SDL on an iphone .

I only hope there will be a new version of the lgpl and gpl that address this issue very soon.

4

Baaaasically… you’re an idiot.

LOL, spit up coffee on that one, thanks…

I think michelleC doesn’t understand that Galaxy Gameworks is Sam and that
the licensed SDL for static compilation is required for iPhone dev … and
that there are possible other applications where a static link might be
beneficial for licensing/legal reasons etc.

… now to go find some paper towns to clean off desk …

-WillOn Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Tim Angus wrote:

On Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:21:00 -0800 michelleC wrote:

5

Some people are going to make games and they’re going to do so under the
impression that if a game engine is open source, they’ll make less money on
it. There are all kinds of angles and arguments both ways (I land strongly
in favor of open source,) but as long as there are consumers throwing their
money at the most notoriously locked down proprietary platforms as iPhone (I
can think of very few other companies that have unapologetically "bricked"
their products over the air if the owner had unlocked it) I can think of no
reason the open source community shouldn’t allow themselves to have some of
that money thrown at them.

When frameworks like SDL embrace those platforms and do the hard work for us
(although mailing list chatter seems to indicate SDL on iPhone is not yet
perfected) we can target the iPhone audience while insulating ourselves from
a lot of the proprietary bs we have to deal with to deploy on an esoteric
platform we might never want to develop for otherwise. I know I don’t have
any plans to learn a proprietary product’s API any time soon, so I’ll pay
Sam to learn it for me, and make it easy for me to port my open source
software to iPhone.

I’m playing a little bit of devil’s advocate here. I too feel a twinge pain
at the licensing situation with SDL. But looking at it this way makes it
easier to swallow.

Personally I think it would be great to see a game or two on the App Store
that expounds the merits of open source software!On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 7:21 PM, michelleC wrote:

I think its a shame when companies rewrite the details of open source
licensing just for their own profit and blame it on some technical details.

It’s true that statically linking is’nt the same as shared libraries, but
they do meet the intent of the whole original reason for that clause in the
lgpl license.
its the case of the letter of the law vs. the law. And Glaxy gameworks is
taking advantage of some small technicality at the most.

The shame of it is is that whole purpose of including the shared library
clause was to make open source code a little more paulable to the commercial
user
while at the same time bring a lot more varied technologies to the open
source world.

The lgpl needs to be looked at and revised taking into account static
linking.

other vendors offering lgpl licenses state that compliance is the
following.

Any modification to source code must be available on a server or version
control system publicly reachable.
The natural objects from the build must be published along with the headers
files.

But reading the galaxygameworks requirements it sounds like these
provisions taken directly from the lgpl license would still violate the sdl
license, in fact it sounds like if others do not want to make all the source
available under the gpl portion of the license they have to pay a fee.

This is not an issue for me because anything of mine that uses sdl will be
gpl, However I give galaxcy gameworks a f+ for there implementation and use
of the lgpl. It puts a stain on the whole purpose of open source as far as I
am concerned. And will slow adaption of SDL on an iphone .

I only hope there will be a new version of the lgpl and gpl that address
this issue very soon.

Erik Yuzwa wrote:

Ahh I missed that, thanks Bill

I caught the link to the SDL site but not the reverse one [image: Smile]

Erik

** Sent from my iPhone so pls excuse any typos **

On 2010-02-16, at 4:01 PM, Bill Kendrick <> wrote:

Quote:

On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 03:46:21PM -0700, Erik Yuzwa wrote:

Quote:

Hey gang,

Just wondering if I missed a news release somewhere…

Came across “Galaxy Gameworks” which is apparently charging $500.00
for a commercial license to SDL 1.3

The commercial license grants you personal e-mail support as well as
SDL for the iPhone.

The language on the “about” page seems to imply that Sam runs Galaxy
Gameworks, yet nowhere on any of his pages I’ve found on google does
he mention “GG”…

Correct, that’s Sam. See, for example:

http://forums.libsdl.org/viewtopic.php?t=5166&sid=1cd8f77a7d20bded78828e45a341f120

And the FAQ that it links to:
http://www.galaxygameworks.com/license-FAQ.html

–
-bill!
Sent from my computer

SDL mailing list

http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org

SDL mailing list

http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org

SDL mailing list
SDL at lists.libsdl.org
http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org

–
http://codebad.com/

6

Will Langford wrote:> On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Tim Angus <tim at ngus.net (tim at ngus.net)> wrote:

On Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:21:00 -0800 michelleC wrote:

Baaaasically… you’re an idiot.

LOL, spit up coffee on that one, thanks…

I think michelleC doesn’t understand that Galaxy Gameworks is Sam and that the licensed SDL for static compilation is required for iPhone dev ?.. and that there are possible other applications where a static link might be beneficial for licensing/legal reasons etc.

… now to go find some paper towns to clean off desk …

-Will

If I am an idiot its because I’ve been doing open source for a long long time and it just seems to me some companies have now found a way to use clearly gpl code , some there own some others undler clearly commerical licensing.

Does this violate the open source licenses , probably not, does this violate the spirt of open source , you bet. Am i going to get a million flames over this, you bet. Do I care, NOT A CHANCE.

here are some excepts from the license, I am sure everyone knows were to find the full gnu licenses…

here ARE TWO licenses for SDL gpl and commercial, the commercial is intended by SAM or whatever entity for those platforms that are potential revenue generators. Call it lgpl and blame the reason for the fee on apple.

Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public Licenses are intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software–to make sure the software is free for all its users.

ou receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and distribute a copy of this License along with the Library.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Library or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Library, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

  • a) The modified work must itself be a software library.
  • b) You must cause the files modified to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
  • c) You must cause the whole of the work to be licensed at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
  • d) If a facility in the modified Library refers to a function or a table of data to be supplied by an application program that uses the facility, other than as an argument passed when the facility is invoked, then you must make a good faith effort to ensure that, in the event an application does not supply such function or table, the facility still operates, and performs whatever part of its purpose remains meaningful.
7

Donny Viszneki wrote:

Personally I think it would be great to see a game or two on the App
Store that expounds the merits of open source software!

There’s at least one:

http://iphonedevelopertips.com/open-source/wolfenstein-3d-iphone-source-code.html

Regards,

Bill

8

Donny Viszneki wrote:

Personally I think it would be great to see a game or two on the App
Store that expounds the merits of open source software!

There’s at least one:

http://iphonedevelopertips.com/open-source/wolfenstein-3d-iphone-source-code.html

Doom for the iPhone is also open source (being based off of prboom). You can
download it’s source as well. Hell, I’ve seen an interesting breakdown for
code flow for it as well (as compared to regular doom engines on other
platforms).

-WillOn Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 8:03 PM, Bill Kelly wrote:

9

Will Langford wrote:> On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 8:03 PM, Bill Kelly <billk at cts.com (billk at cts.com)> wrote:

Donny Viszneki wrote:

Personally I think it would be great to see a game or two on the App
Store that expounds the merits of open source software!

There’s at least one:

http://iphonedevelopertips.com/open-source/wolfenstein-3d-iphone-source-code.html (http://iphonedevelopertips.com/open-source/wolfenstein-3d-iphone-source-code.html)

Yes the code overview of doom was great I learned a lot from that, but there are quite a few lgpl games in the appstore, wunderradio for instance publishes about 80% of their source code, An app called mormon radio which is sponsored by the church of latter day saints , not only publishes the source but encourages other developers to contribute code, ivideocamera is very open about their development techniques.

We haven’t even released our photostream app yet, but I’ve already given a good portion of the code away , iphone to iphone sharing and facebook access, which is actually a significant part of our app.

The tone of many posters seem to be that iphone developers are greedy folks who only care about revenue and deserve to be charged big license fees.

The fact is a lot of us started as open source developers, many of us have not gotten used to the fact that you can collect revenue for your work. Mind you some have adapted quite fast. However some of us are looking at different models.

A model I like is to publish all the source, after all the only people who can compile for the devices other than the simulator are other developers, there arn’t that many of us in the program. So a fair amount of revenue will be collected from the non developers. Plus a lot of new tech will get into the wild.

For an open source developer such a model sounds like nirvana.

Doom for the iPhone is also open source (being based off of prboom).?You can download it’s source as well. ?Hell, I’ve seen an interesting breakdown for code flow for it as well (as compared to regular doom engines on other platforms).

-Will

10

michelleC wrote:

[snipped]
If I am an idiot its because I’ve been doing open source for a long long
time and it just seems to me some companies have now found a way to use
clearly gpl code , some there own some others undler clearly commerical
licensing.
[snipped]

Why the need to treat everyone like schoolchildren who don’t know
this and that? What has the GPL got to do with the discussion?

You’re trying too hard. Don’t. Stand down and chill out.

This is an entertaining train wreck. :-)–
Cheers,
Kein-Hong Man (esq.)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

11

If I am an idiot its because I’ve been doing open source for a long
long time and it just seems to me some companies have now found a way
to use clearly gpl code , some there own some others undler clearly
commerical licensing.

Galaxy Gameworks is Sam Latinga, the guy who wrote SDL. He can license it
under any terms he chooses. You can like it or not, take it or not. He is
the copyright owner, you are a licensee.

The terms and conditions of iPhone development is set forth by Apple, Inc.
since they are the copyright owner for the iPhone’s software and license
it to you under any way they see fit.

Apple is known to have an aversion towards free software, or more to the
point, free software licences that force you to publish the source and
grant rights to use of the code. You may recall the legal issues between
the Free Software Foundation and Apple / NeXT, with regards to gcc. The
fact that gcc is now licensed under GPLv3 is one of the reasons why Apple
is moving to Clang. Apple is no different from Microsoft in terms of
vendor lock-in, explitation of monopoly power (they have monopoly on the
iPhone market and they do exploit it to the hilt) and all that. The
possible difference in attitude is that while both Microsoft and Apple
want to rip you off as much as possible, Apple at least wants you to feel
good about it (possibly due to the ulterior motive of your coming back for
more of the same).

The whole iPhone app development is revolving around the commercial
software model, mostly because Apple wants it to be that way. Galaxy
offers SDL 1.3 under the LGPL, so you can’t really complain. Apple, on
the other hand, does not allow you to dynamically link libraries on the
iPhone. Since the LGPL does not allow static linking, Sam offers you a
commercial license to develop your commercial iPhone applications in which
you can statically link SDL. Note that this commercial license is not in
lieu of an open license, it is in addition to it, for the specific case of
commercial exploitation of his work. This last sentence directly addresses
your statement of “found a way to use clearly gpl code, some there [sic]
own”. Sam does not use his own code. He releases it under multiple
licensing and he has both the legal and the ethical ground to do so.

As far as I know, nothing stops you to release your entire project under
the GPL, in which case you can statically link the LGPL SDL. The problem
is when you do not want to release your code but want to use SDL for free.
Well, you can do that on the Mac, on Windows, on any free unix system but
you can’t on the iPhone, because Apple doesn’t allow you to dynamically
link libraries and the LGPL doesn’t allow you to statically link the
library to a closed-source product. Thus, the only case you hit the wall
is when you want commercial gain but you do not want Sam to get
compensation from you for SDL and your target platform, alas, does not let
you dynamically link Sam’s code against yours.

Please note that Sam had no obligation whatsoever to release SDL under any
free license in the first place. Yet he did so. He also offers a
commercial license, which may or may not satisfy your needs and/or align
with your preferences. Nevertheless, since he did a lot of work developing
SDL, and he released it under a free licence, the only thing one can say
is “thank you”, not a lecture on licensing. In fact, I think that if SDL
1.3 (arguably should be called 2.0) had been released only under
commercial terms, he should still have deserved the “thanks” for SDL 1.2.

Zoltan

12

The topic of dual-licensing as commercial is often met with hostility from certain open source developers and users, but even the GPL itself has commercial use at its roots and concessions to enable
its use in an otherwise proprietary environment, chief among these is the fact it allows system libraries (often proprietary) to be used without concern.

In the case of the iPhone the problem centers on the LGPL and its definition of a “program”, an LGPL or GPL program can freely static link SDL without a problem because collectively the program has
the same rights associated with it (user is entitled to source to the binaries they received for the program, among other rights).

However a proprietary program using SDL faces a problem because the iPhone platform does not permit dynamic linking.

On any other platform that does allow dynamic linking this problem does not appear, and SDL has traditionally been used by several commercial games and applications for these “more open” platforms.

SDL has its roots at Loki Entertainment in Linux and Mac ports of Windows games, frequently SDL was static linked in these games and this was permitted because the copyright holders of SDL were
permitting this use (effectively they were licensing it for this purpose, a dual-license case).

What Sam is trying to allow is commercial proprietary apps to use SDL on the iPhone (a notoriously profit-making platform, these are not “free” apps), a modest fee for this feature is not anything to
worry about because these applications almost always make several times this amount.

The only more general solution is what Mason Wheeler suggested - a public dual license that permits static linking to a proprietary application without any fees involved.

As for my own view, I have been in many discussions on this topic with respect to game engines (dual open source / commercial licensing options with a fee attached) and am a firm proponent of
dual-licensing where it makes sense, I think this is such a case.

From personal experience with id Software on QuakeLive porting (which did not use SDL, due to its nature as a firefox plugin on Mac OS X), I can vouch for the value of SDL and the amount of pain it
avoids, it can take months to simply get an application working properly on a proprietary system from Apple, because their documentation is not what it could be.

So in essence, SDL enables the production of many future iPhone games that otherwise would not exist, and the fee is perfectly reasonable on a profit-seeking app store.

This is only my view, but I think it requires more consideration than simply dismissing it as “Sam is being greedy”.

Now, the shareware xchat windows builds are a much more offensive topic and better example of greed :)–
LordHavoc
Author of DarkPlaces Quake1 engine - http://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces
Co-designer of Nexuiz - http://alientrap.org/nexuiz
"War does not prove who is right, it proves who is left." - Unknown
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." - James Klass
"A game is a series of interesting choices." - Sid Meier

13

I admit I’m not familiar with the xchat example you mention,
but it sounds similar to whatGcompris does. Download for free for Linux.
Pay to download the Windows version:

“In order to promote the use of GNU/Linux, the windows version has a
limited number of activities. It is possible to access all the
activities for a fee.”

Then there’s what I do: Tux Paint is free to download, but I also produce
a CDROM for people who prefer a physical copy (easier to give as a gift,
potentially easier to install on school labs filled with computers,
or if they simply want to throw $$ at me).On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 08:03:07PM -0800, Forest Hale wrote:

Now, the shareware xchat windows builds are a much more offensive topic and better example of greed :slight_smile:

–
-bill!
Sent from my computer

14

Okay, maybe it’s just me, but somehow that seems fair :slight_smile:

JeffOn Tuesday 16 February 2010 21:24, Bill Kendrick wrote:

I admit I’m not familiar with the xchat example you mention,
but it sounds similar to whatGcompris does. Download for free for Linux.
Pay to download the Windows version:

15

Hi,

zoltan at bendor.com.au schrieb:

Galaxy Gameworks is Sam Latinga, the guy who wrote SDL. He can license it
under any terms he chooses. You can like it or not, take it or not. He is
the copyright owner, you are a licensee.

Hi, haven’t followed SDL not for very long. But does SDL follow the
Bazaar or the cathedral developmet model? What about the contributions
of others? Does Sam make this money with their work?
Personally i don’t care (haven’t contribute anything, it’s just an
opinion), at least for the iPhone. Let the Apple servants pay… they are
used to pay for their hmm taste :wink:

Regards

Christoph

16

blah blah blah

obviously, the GPL is wrought with issues. mostly, idiots who think
RMS is saving the world and making everyone free. well, the GPL is not
about freedom, or there would be no backlash like this discussion when
the AUTHOR and COPYRIGHT HOLDER wants to use his code in certain
ways.

I thought everyone knew that, but I guess there are still many idiots
out there who still think the GPL is about freedom. if it were about
freedom in the true sense of the word this discussion would never
happen. and this discussion is not making anyone or anything freer,
it’s not “protecting” anything, it’s just a waste of time.

can we move on now?On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 08:03:07PM -0800, Forest Hale wrote:

–
@Jacob_Meuser
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org

17

Hi, haven’t followed SDL not for very long. But does SDL follow the
Bazaar or the cathedral developmet model? What about the
contributions of others? Does Sam make this money with their work?
Personally i don’t care (haven’t contribute anything, it’s just an
opinion), at least for the iPhone. Let the Apple servants pay… they
are used to pay for their hmm taste :wink:

I’m by no means authorative on this (Sam is, I guess) but as far as I
know the SDL core is more cathedral than bazaar. Extra contributions
usually come as acompanying packages, SDL_xxxx. Dunno about the details
of the 1.3 commercial license (I don’t plan to develop for the iPhone),
but I assume that it would cover only the SDL core (which is Sam’s
creation) and other packages, if you need them, come with their own
license and own set of copyright holders.

Again, I might be completely wrong - maybe Sam could clarify.

Zoltan

18

I agree, but to comply you need to buy the license upfront even if you don’t make a penny on a game.

By the way thanks for calling those of us who believe gpl is about sharing information idiots…

Nothing changes if you never discusss it!

mandarx wrote:>

zoltan wrote:

Galaxy Gameworks is Sam Latinga, the guy who wrote SDL. He can license it
under any terms he chooses. You can like it or not, take it or not. He is
the copyright owner, you are a licensee.

I totally agree

I think that if you earn money selling your game made with SDL on the apple store
it’s fair to buy the SDL license

zoltan wrote:

the only case you hit the wall
is when you want commercial gain but you do not want Sam to get
compensation from you

you are right!!!

19

Oh and I agree this discussion is a waste of time.

For one thing sdl on the iphone is not ready for primetime.

another issue

Offering licenses on clearly Alpha level code.

God , even more discussion now.

michelleC wrote:> I agree, but to comply you need to buy the license upfront even if you don’t make a penny on a game.

By the way thanks for calling those of us who believe gpl is about sharing information idiots…

Nothing changes if you never discusss it!

mandarx wrote:

zoltan wrote:

Galaxy Gameworks is Sam Latinga, the guy who wrote SDL. He can license it
under any terms he chooses. You can like it or not, take it or not. He is
the copyright owner, you are a licensee.

I totally agree

I think that if you earn money selling your game made with SDL on the apple store
it’s fair to buy the SDL license

zoltan wrote:

the only case you hit the wall
is when you want commercial gain but you do not want Sam to get
compensation from you

you are right!!!

20

So, anyone with whom you don’t agree is an idiot. Thanks for letting us know,
we idiots would never have thought of that.

JeffOn Wednesday 17 February 2010 01:39, Jacob Meuser wrote:

I thought everyone knew that, but I guess there are still many idiots
out there who still think the GPL is about freedom.