Should NonCommercial licenses be disallowed in Mod Releases?

[Wuzzy]

Currently, the guidelines for the posts in Mod Releases disallow licenses which disallow derivates, but nothing is said about licenses which forbid commercial usage.

So my question is: Should they be disallowed? (The same question is of course for Subgame Releases, too, but I ran out of characters. :D)
Please also say why.

I talk specifically about Creative Commons licenses with the “NC” (=NonCommercial) clause:

• CC BY-NC
• CC BY-NC-SA
• CC BY-NC-ND

But it can apply to any license with such a clause.

[Wuzzy]

My answer:

Spoiler

Yes.

Reasons:

1) Ethical: I think it is morally wrong to use licensing to forbid how a particular software is used. It does not make sense to me. Restricting commercial usage (however it is defined) is a restriction of usage, and inherently incompatible with free software.
2) Practical: The Creative Commons licenses with the NC clause are broken by design. The definition of “commercial activity” is so vague many things can be interpreted as “commercial” even if not a penny is involved. Therefore, to be safe, people have to treat works under such a license as if it were under full copyright. It's the only safe way
3) There is an alternative: If you want to avoid commercial exploitation, a share-alike license (e.g. CC BY-SA instead of CC BY-SA-NC) will suit you just fine, without having the problem
4) Many other reasons are stated in http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC. I agree with this document 100%. I quote the summary:

The key problems with -NC licenses are as follows:

• They make your work incompatible with a growing body of free content, even if you do want to allow derivative works or combinations.
• They may rule out other basic and beneficial uses which you want to allow.
• They support current, near-infinite copyright terms.
• They are unlikely to increase the potential profit from your work, and a share-alike license serves the goal to protect your work from unethical exploitation equally well.

Even if we decide that this kind of license stays allowed, I strongly urge every modder here to not use such a clause for their mods, for the same reasons as stated above.
The vast majority of mods do not have a NonCommercial clause anyway and are free software. The mods which do have such a clause are very rare, luckily.

[xeranas]

Do we talk about media files or code?
As you mentioned "Creative Commons licenses" and they are not designed for software and source code then you must be referring media files.

Media files often comes from thirdparty artist (especially sounds). Many good minecraft texture packs are released for NonComercial use only and I totally understand why. With such restriction many subgames would end-up with same few free but "ethical" default texture packs.

Such restriction would only make harder to find proper audio files and apply some cool texture packs from MC community.
Sorry but none of your reason was about improving end-user (gamer) experience. Most important here should be MT players not modders or subgame creators.

[Byakuren]

One thing that is clearly commercial activity is uploading a Youtube video of the mod, if you monetize. Even if you don't, you are directly contributing to making Youtube money, which can be considered commercial activity.

[Linuxdirk]

People should be allowed to release their works under whatever license they want. If they don't want to have their work commercially used they should be allowed to distribute it like that. But it should be made clear if making monetized videos is okay or not.

[karamel]

The guidelines are consistent. Minetest is licenced under LGPL which allows non-free games (but derivation is required for modding).

Contributors are probably facing the same problem than contributing to Minecraft (in a lesser extend). It's not guaranteed that their effort won't get in a closed commercial game with almost no reward.

But anyway, the NC clause is so blurry it doesn't means that much and prevents a lot of use (like said youtube promotion, use in public LAN, game-centers, streaming etc).

Using CC-by-SA would probably be a better answer than NC because it is viral. So putting a CC-by-SA texture pack may require all other textures to be CC-by-SA compatible (but still not sure, I don't understand well the scope of verbatim inclusion in something else), so you won't be able to put them in Minecraft anyway… So we're stuck because of non-free softwares, mostly, again.

So why not, but if forbidding commercial use is banned, should Minetest go full GPL? That the question if the scope is wider than the Creative Commons NC clause.

[Wuzzy]

For the no-says I love to read a refutation of http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC. PLEASE do read this.

Do we talk about media files or code?

Both. The CC licenses are the most notable, of course, but I'm talking about any license which forbids commercial use.

Media files often comes from thirdparty artist (especially sounds). Many good minecraft texture packs are released for NonComercial use only and I totally understand why. With such restriction many subgames would end-up with same few free but "ethical" default texture packs.

Such restriction would only make harder to find proper audio files and apply some cool texture packs from MC community.

Well the problem is that you can't really legally build subgames out of these mods then if you make a penny
somewhere (even if just a banner ad).
It's also about sending a message, in some sense. In the sense that some freedoms (like the freedom to use for any purpose) are non-negotiable.

But I see your point. Yes, it totally sucks to filter out artwork based on their licensing. We could maybe try to actively convince more Minecraft artists to drop the -NC (and also -ND). But this would't get us to 100% because there will always be some people who insist not to change the license. But yeah, we definitely have a shortage of good artists in our free software movement. There's still a lot to do, it's far easier to find programmers than artists. I wonder why.

Well, as I often said, the real solution to fix this is to get rid of copyright, so we never have to worry about licenses again. We could also all just collectively stop to care about copyright altogether and just use whatever we find. It would be of course quite dangerous and maybe this would be the only REAL freedom. I don't think this community is ready for this yet.

Sorry but none of your reason was about improving end-user (gamer) experience. Most important here should be MT players not modders or subgame creators.

This particular restriction impacts players as well as soon they make any form of $$$. Just one word: YouTube.
It's a misconception that free software in general is only really important for the programmer. No, it really impacts everyone who comes in contact with software. Becaue everyone can copy and share software, and everyone could theoreically sell these copies.

Many good minecraft texture packs are released for NonComercial use only and I totally understand why.

Are you sure you understand why? I think it mostly comes from the fact that people don't understand the problems of -NC and that they totally underestimate the impact.
I also want to blame the Creative Commons project to
a) offer -NC in the first place
b) writing the license in such a way that it is very dangerous to use as an user (unless you got a permission)
c) even very insignificant exchanges of money are forbidden and
d) failing to properly educate the public about the big problems with -NC in their license chooser on their homepage

I think the Creative Commons project has done a lot of damage to the whole “free culture” idea with the -NC and -ND clauses. They have missed an opportunity to send a strong message about that these freedoms are essential.

One thing that is clearly commercial activity is uploading a Youtube video of the mod, if you monetize. Even if you don't, you are directly contributing to making Youtube money, which can be considered commercial activity.

If you are already OK with YouTube monetization, why stop there? I see no logical reason why any other form should be prohibited. This seesm quite arbitrary.
There are so many other ways to make $$$ in the Internet, banners are also common. Some other ways we both don't even know of yet. What's important to understand is that -NC prohibits ALL commercial activity, even if you earn very little. This point is also addressed in http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC.

Besides: I'm definitely not a friend of capitalism.

People should be allowed to release their works under whatever license they want. If they don't want to have their work commercially used they should be allowed to distribute it like that. But it should be made clear if making monetized videos is okay or not.

Why? Is it about the author's freedom? I think this sense of freedom is hypocritical, because we're talking about the freedom of the author to deny the freedom of everyone else.
Currently this forum already explicitly forbids NoDerivates licensing and nobody seems to have complained.

This is antithetical to the whole point of the entire Minetest project.

So why not, but if forbidding commercial use is banned, should Minetest go full GPL? That the question if the scope is wider than the Creative Commons NC clause.

No, this is off-topic. :P

[Byakuren]

I was just noting that noncommercial license would forbid making monetized YouTube videos, and probably unmonetized ones too.

[xeranas]

I feel that this issue needs to be discussed more with artists - media creators. It's important to know they opinions more than coders like me with sh!Ty pixel art skills and no what so ever audio or 3d modelling skills. So my opinion on licensing art can be ignored.

BTW seems old Related post:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13684

[Wuzzy]

Hmm, this discussion seems to have been forgotten for a while now.
No refutation of http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC so far.
My opinion still stands.
Ads on YouTube is a very good point, thank you. From what I read from that discussion you linked to it's pretty much forbidden under NC (unless you have explicit permission anyway, of course).

The core developers have not weighted in so far. :-(
I agree that it would be nice if artists would start to talk here as well.

By the way, onpon4 even mentioned Minetest mods on a website:
https://onpon4.github.io/other/gaming-trap/

[GreenXenith]

TL;DR much (probably a bad thing.. heh).
I don't need to refute the NC license.
You asked if NonCommercial licenses should be allowed or not.
According to forum guidelines, we cannot upload mods with licenses that do not allow downloading, modifying, and re-distributing.
-NC licenses allow all of those, as long as not intended for commercial use.
Therefore, it fits within the forum guidelines.

However, my opinion is that -NC licenses are annoying because they limit users on freedom, since users should be able to do whatever they want with mods. Whether this is grounds for banning this license on user-contributed content for Minetest, I don't know.

[ShadMOrdre]

Let's be honest with ourselves. Licenses only matter to modders/devs/content creators. Users do not redistribute.

Wuzzy, would YOU be ok if someone took MineClone and sold it, for profit? Or if someone took your artwork and made a Minecraft mod, for profit?

How do you really protect code anyway?

Code: Select all

minetest.register_node(blah blah blah)

. Is that really unique enough to qualify for copyright protection? How about

Code: Select all

SELECT user.name FROM tbl_users

? No. However, the content used, (ie graphics, audio, literary) is outside the sphere of Minetest licensing limitations, and is included at the whim of the content creator, by a developer, who are not necessarily one and the same.

Let's not forget that while there are those who do this for fun and kicks, there are also those who do this for a living. Minecraft modders aim to make a profit. Otherwise, why are you selling your mod vs giving it away? This is the nature of development on Windows. Free software doesn't get pushed by MS like the paid products do. Apple and Google do this too with the app store. Ever see a truly FREE product of noted quality on either app store, that isn't laden with ads, banners, or malicious code, getting hyped by the app store. Didn't think so. Somebody somewhere is making a buck.

Just because the license prohibits commercial activity doesn't make it any less valuable. I personally would be offended and financially harmed if anyone took my work, and profited from it. Do we deny those who've worked hard to create content from releasing their work simply because it isn't free? Have we forgotten the lessons of MS's battles with the open source community, and their blatant use of open source code?

There is hypocrisy here. How far back do we take this arguement? My bet, is that if you push this hard enough, then you must accept that making money off anything that runs on Linux runs afoul of GPL/LGPL. Youtube videos included. Do we tell Nathan S to quite making his excellent videos, because they are monetized, if not by him, then by Youtube? What about jordan4ibanez's videos? Look at his post regarding how to include an image in a post here on the forum? Why not simply type out the solution, instead of pointing someone to Youtu.be?

Commercial activity has one goal....to make profit. Is it OK that unethical people take freely available software and commercialize it? This happens more than the free software community would like to admit.

BUT....lets address this simple issue. Free must also mean MY freedom to release as I desire any content I create. Hence the usage of Libre vs Free "as in beer". One means my freedom to use and tinker, while the other means free, as in I paid nothing. There is a glowing hypocrisy in how the free software community interprets free.

Let's not delude ourselves into thinking that this only really matters to end users. My 6 year old cares nothing about licensing. He only knows that dad makes things work. Libre, my freedom to hack code to add a train, or color a block differently, or whatever other changes I decide to make. Libre, my freedom to release said modifications/derivations/updates/bug fixes, is not really free, without the original authors permission. Free "as in beer", making all my releases available sans payment.

Licensing is of utmost concern to content creators, and those who want to use that content in a product of their own. Again I ask, would you like someone to take your hard work and profit from it, attribution notwithstanding? And while we're on the subject of attribution, isn't that a form of commercial activity? After all, your name getting recognition is a form of payment....

Where does all this end.........it doesn't.

My refutation of the link above is simply that there is a glowing misunderstanding of Free Software vs Free Culture. Free culture just wants stuff it doesn't have to pay for, while Free Software usually means Libre, your freedom to see the source code, and make modifications as desired. They are NOT one and the same, and this leads to the confusion experienced by those asking these types of questions. Capitalism, such a dirty word, is not about making huge profits, it is simply about your ability to get paid for your work, so you can feed the kids and pay rent.

DISCLAIMER: My mods are in fact licensed LGPL/WTFYW/CC-3.0-SA. Have fun with my hard work. I give it away because I want folks to experience something new and different, and simply, because I can.

Shad MOrdre

[Linuxdirk]

How do you really protect code anyway?

Code: Select all

minetest.register_node(blah blah blah)

. Is that really unique enough to qualify for copyright protection? How about

Code: Select all

SELECT user.name FROM tbl_users

? No.

What about a digital drawing of four slightly twisted squares? Is that really unique enough to qualify for copyright protection? How about a stylized cup of coffee drawn with 8 curved lines? No. Yes!

It’s the context that matters. Of course a single database query or a single registering of a node is not protection worthy (keyword: threshold of originality). But when put in context they become relevant and can be protected as a part of a program/mod/application/brand/whatever.

Ever see a truly FREE product of noted quality on either app store, that isn't laden with ads, banners, or malicious code, getting hyped by the app store.

That’s the “fault” of the app store. Use an alternative store and you get great FOSS apps.

BUT....lets address this simple issue. Free must also mean MY freedom to release as I desire any content I create.

Exactly. So when releasing a MT mod release it under whatever license you want. I chose GPL version 3 because I prefer this license. Others use WTFPL, some use the MIT license, etc. When using non-commercial licenses you are not allowed to post your work in the forums. People are not allowed to use it in monetarized videos without individual or general permission, and so on. But if one does not want their work being commercially used NC licenses are perfect for them they just have to deal with the consequences.

[ShadMOrdre]

Linuxdirk,

Comparing code and graphics is not the same. While I've often likened software development to artistry, there is an inherent difference in the two. Artistry is most often done outside the sphere of a device screen. Mosts artists that are known use easel, canvas, and paint. GIMP/Photoshop make these tools unnecessary, enabling the masses to create. In pixel art, say a 16x16 grid, the likelyhood of more than one person creating similar enough works that they could be considered the same, is MUCH higher.

Again, consider, how many database programmers have written the following line?

Code: Select all

SELECT customername FROM customer_table

I'd venture to say that the vast majority have. Context is relative here. How may have written simple contact management systems that ALL do the same thing, keep track of a customers information? How creative or original is it to recreate the wheel, adding a simple "feature" to make it unique. Not many have actually done this outside of updating their trademarked logos and maybe renaming menu items, or even code functions. There are a number of commercial products that are direct ripoffs of open source projects. This is all made too easy by the insistence on free. Open source does not mean free. It means open. There is the confusion that exists.

The logos to which you refer, were most likely drawn on paper long before they ever saw the movement of a mouse to recreate them digitally. And honestly, how many ways are there to draw a coffee cup or a window. Enough that this can be considered original.

The same is true of code, but in a more limited sense. The Open Document standards war is an example. If I create a Word doc, the contents of the doc are copyrighted by me, yet, the format in which it exists is also copyrighted by MS, thus giving them a degree of control over my copyrighted work, and thus limiting my ability to transfer my copyrighted doc contents to the tool of my choice. As an example, does Bic limit you in what you can write with a pen? Do they care that you choose to switch to a Pilot pen halfway through? They simply can't. But MS can keep you from simply opening your doc in LibreOffice. There is no correlation, and this gives rise to the issue at hand.

As for the hidden link to F-Droid, which is another issue I'll address, remember that Apple forbids ALL non-Apple App Store products from their iPhone devices at risk of voiding the ToS or device warrentee. F-Droid is also known for being a distro point for malware. Users are too easily duped. Most of what is available there has no corresponding marketing, little to no documentation, is actively developed by developers who do not always adhere to any sane release policy, ensuring that bugs will occur. End users want a product that is usable, and just works, not a product that they have to work on just to make usable. And no device maker even points to F-Droid as an option, since that would decrease their potential for profits, the whole reason they are in business in the first place.

As for the hidden link, pointing to a link on the same website using a "hidden link" is one thing, but pointing to a third party website in this manner is dangerous. While using this feature of the forum is handy for pointing to mods and subgames by name, using this to point to a potentially malicious site makes hacking all the more easier.

Don't get me wrong here, context means everything when determining copyright/patentability. Originality does matter. But again, how original is any code or graphic that is inherently limited in number of possibilities.

But my opinion is that most folks in the Free Software "movement" prefer to not think about the overarching ramifications of licensing, prefering to stay in the gray area of confusing Free software with Open software.

Years ago, when GPL3 was released, I asked the question of incompatibility between GPL2 and GPL3, and what rights an end user had in the long run. The only answer I ever got was, you are free to do as you wish. And the entire sham came crumbling down for me, simply because that statement runs contrary to licensing. Sure, I could continue to use a particular product under the GPL2 version, losing my rights to the community updates provided under GPL3, but again, the hypocrisy and shear ignorance of such an answer just delayed my willingness to try to contribute.

The last comment about releasing as I wish, limitations or not, just points to the above paragraph.

At the center of all this is exactly what Wuzzy was complaining about.

Shad MOrdre

[Linuxdirk]

Context is relative here.

Context is important here. For example: Take the following line.

Code: Select all

decimal = (decimal - rest) / 2

Is it copyrighted? Highly likely not because threshold of originality is not reached. There is simply nothing copyright-worthy in assigning the result of a simple mathematical calculation to a variable. This is a common thing Lua coders all around the globe do on an everyday basis.

But now put it in context and BAM, you have a local function that takes a decimal number and returns a little-endian binary representation of that number.

Code: Select all

local convert_to_binary = function(decimal)
    local binary = {}
    while decimal > 0 do
        local rest = math.fmod(decimal, 2)
        binary[#binary + 1] = rest
        decimal = (decimal - rest) / 2
    end
    return table.concat(binary)
end

To me this simple function is still not above the threshold of originality. It is just a table, and a loop adding zeros and ones as entries, based on some simple math and then the entries are concatenated and returned.

Give some more context and you get a preparation script under GPL version 3 that returns a binary table basing on the input that can be used in one of my mods.

https://github.com/4w/xtend/blob/6be37e ... _table.lua

Context is important. Take a single line from any program with a proprietary license. The line itself is not copyrighted. Put it in proper context and it is.

How creative or original is it to recreate the wheel, adding a simple "feature" to make it unique.

It is not relevant if something is creative compared to something else to be copyright-worthy. It does not have to be original or creative at to have a license applied users and other developers must adhere to.

[Something about pencils]

Okay, if you buy a Microsoft pencil and the description says that the pencil only works on Microsoft paper and Microsoft releases a documentation on how to make Microsoft paper but a lot of the description in that documentation are unclear or missing then it is hard for anyone else to create Microsoft paper they limit you in what paper you can use to write on with this pencil.

Same with the Open Document format from Microsoft: The official documentation on that is overcomplicated and incomplete. No-one except Microsoft can properly implement it. It is a format that is broken by design and on purpose. It is made to be as incompatible as possible and as hard to implement as possible but still be seen as open. Microsoft is a commercial organization.

Microsoft is a bad example in this discussion because they are the marked leading company on traditional home and office computers. They simple do not want anyone fishing in their pond but still want to be seen as open to others which simply is not true. All they do they do it because they want to eliminate other companies either by suing them or buying them or making them irrelevant.

remember that Apple […]

See Microsoft.

F-Droid is also known for being a distro point for malware.

Never had any issues since 2010.

[Hidden link]

What hidden link?

[ShadMOrdre]

Linuxdirk,

We are getting off topic. Whether something is/should be copyrightable is not relevant to this particular topic.

I do agree with your points regarding our discussion, I am a dev after all.

The "hidden" link simply refers to this:

http://www.google.com
Google

and the "risky" one....

A 'better' Google

It's in the way that the actual address is masked by the words. For pros, well, we know better don't we. As for noobs, well we all know how easily anyone falls "fake news", or anything else presented as truth......

Shad MOrdre

[Linuxdirk]

The "hidden" link simply refers to this:

But you do know how the status bar (or link information pop-in of nowadays browser) works?

[Wuzzy]

Let's be honest with ourselves. Licenses only matter to modders/devs/content creators. Users do not redistribute.

Wrong. Have you never shared any file in your life? Copying is, like, the lifeblood of the Internet. Whenever you share … well … basically anything over the Internet without the explicit author's permission, you infringed copyright.
In the Internet, copyright infringement is very easy to do: Start Google Image Search, take a random image and put it on your homepage, your user page, a forum post or whatever. And bam! Copyright infringement! Users who don't care simply were just lucky enough to have never been sued for copyright so far. Or they are rebels. ;-)
It's like with backups. Almost nobody cares about backups until they lose all their data. xD

You argue that users don't need the freedom because they never use it. Even if that would be true, that's not the point of freedom. Freedom is not about the things you actually do, but about the things you could do. If you're locked up in a room in which you get any luxury but you can never leave, and you also don't want to leave, you're still not free.

The biggest problem I have with copyright is that you're not even allowed to share anything with anyone without any money involved. That's outright draconian and completely at odds with what is possible in the Internet.

My refutation of the link above is simply that there is a glowing misunderstanding of Free Software vs Free Culture. Free culture just wants stuff it doesn't have to pay for, while Free Software usually means Libre, your freedom to see the source code, and make modifications as desired.

That's all? That's very disappointing. You didn't address any of the big points stated in the linked post.

You don't get even the definitions of free software and free culture right, please look them up again. Free culture is NOT about money. And free software does not USUALLY mean this-and-that. The definition is actually quite clear.

Wuzzy, would YOU be ok if someone took MineClone and sold it, for profit?

Yes.

Or if someone took your artwork and made a Minecraft mod, for profit?

Yes.

How do you really protect code anyway?

This is off-topic. Besides, copyright is not a “protection”. It doesn't really protect anything. Copyright is an intellectual monopoly privilege granted by the state.

Ever see a truly FREE product of noted quality on either app store, that isn't laden with ads, banners, or malicious code, getting hyped by the app store. Didn't think so. Somebody somewhere is making a buck.

How about Minetest?
But it's true, the so called “App Store” is full is crap. A lot of apps are very abusive and borderline malware. Not just the “free” ones. The reason for this is probably that Apple just doesn't give a shit about their users; they could easily ban abusive apps. Google Play is not better. It shouldn't be a real surprise given that both companies are proprietary software companies themselves.
I find it strange that you claim this to be true even for F-Droid. Care to post a links of abusive apps in F-Droid?

But this is off-topic again.

Just because the license prohibits commercial activity doesn't make it any less valuable.

My point is especially that the Creative Commons NonCommercial licenses are broken by design (again, see my FreedomDefined link). It is very dangerous to use any NonCommercial licenses even if you believe you're not acting commercially. The term “non-commercial” is very loosely defined in the license, that's a huge problem. Creative Commons doesn't seem to care to fix this anytime soon. So the only solution I see is to stop using these.

I personally would be offended and financially harmed if anyone took my work, and profited from it.

Note that I'm also for basic income, which would solve the basic financial problems of the general public. But that's WAY off-topic for now.
Let's just say if your business model depends on monopoly rights granted by the state (and copyright IS such a monopoly right), then I think it's a business model worth to die.

As for being offended, I don't see why. Why are you against that if anyone earns money? In our society, people are pretty much forced to earn money. They have no real choice here.

Commercial activity has one goal....to make profit. Is it OK that unethical people take freely available software and commercialize it? This happens more than the free software community would like to admit.

Yes. That's the whole point of this thread!

Libre, my freedom to release said modifications/derivations/updates/bug fixes, is not really free, without the original authors permission.

True story. Without copyright we wouln't have this discussion.

And while we're on the subject of attribution, isn't that a form of commercial activity?

No.

There is hypocrisy here. How far back do we take this arguement? My bet, is that if you push this hard enough, then you must accept that making money off anything that runs on Linux runs afoul of GPL/LGPL. Youtube videos included. Do we tell Nathan S to quite making his excellent videos, because they are monetized, if not by him, then by Youtube? What about jordan4ibanez's videos? Look at his post regarding how to include an image in a post here on the forum? Why not simply type out the solution, instead of pointing someone to Youtu.be?

I find it very confusing what you write. At this point I have no idea wheather you are FOR or AGAINST licenses which forbid so-called “commercial use”.

BUT....lets address this simple issue. Free must also mean MY freedom to release as I desire any content I create. Hence the usage of Libre vs Free "as in beer". One means my freedom to use and tinker, while the other means free, as in I paid nothing. There is a glowing hypocrisy in how the free software community interprets free.

Well, first of all, you need to recall that all licenses only exist because copyright exists. There can't be licenses without copyright.
Now if you say you need the freedom to release under any license you want you're really saying that you want to be free to choose which freedoms you deny other people. That's because the main feature of a software license is assert what you're not supposed to do.

I have always been very critical of the notion that freedom includes the freedom to deny others their own freedom. I think this “kind” of freedom is very hypocritical.

Years ago, when GPL3 was released, I asked the question of incompatibility between GPL2 and GPL3, and what rights an end user had in the long run. The only answer I ever got was, you are free to do as you wish. And the entire sham came crumbling down for me, simply because that statement runs contrary to licensing. Sure, I could continue to use a particular product under the GPL2 version, losing my rights to the community updates provided under GPL3, but again, the hypocrisy and shear ignorance of such an answer just delayed my willingness to try to contribute.

The person you asked was either incompetent or lying.
Anyway, the GPL2 vs GPL3 clash is a huge problem. Basically free software becomes “legally incompatible” with free software. Which is absolutely crazy and runs contrary to anything what free software stands for. It's strange that this question doesn't come up more often.

We can talk about licenses all day, but at the end of the day, I think the root of the problem is copyright itself. If there weren't any copyright, there also wouldn't be any licenses, we wouldn't even have this discussion and things would be much easier.

But I know copyright is not going to disappear anytime soon, that's why I try to get rid of at least the worst licenses.

[PUMPKINIDOLATER]

The spirit of a Free Software program, as Richard Stallman has pointed out, is to allow for commericial use. That's the very reason why those creative commons licenses are not recognized or thought well of by the FSF community. It runs against the grain of the entire point of the GPL.

Here is the Free Software stance on selling Free Software.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

" Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding.

Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license. If this seems surprising to you, please read on."

Not sure why Mintest chose to license is such a way as to allow this. It makes turning any of this into a commercial product a licensing nightmare; as one would have to pick and choose mods very closely and totally disregard entire works for fear of possible litigation.

I read a post by Richard here: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonfree-games.en.html
That links of to this site in its notes: https://onpon4.github.io/other/gaming-trap/

Near the bottom, it convers Minetest specifically and points out the difficulties of this.

"Minetest Games/Mods

To be perfectly clear, Minetest is a completely libre game. However, it is under the GNU LGPL, and this permits development of proprietary mods and "games". Additionally, the rules of the Minetest Mod Releases forum (where mods are usually posted) only prohibits "[a]ny mod that disallows derivatives", which means proprietary licenses such as CC BY-NC are allowed on that forum. Because of this, when looking to add mods to Minetest (which most Minetest players do), you should always check to see what license the code of the mod is under. Most Minetest mods are libre, but there is a small handful of proprietary Minetest mods which are found on the Mod Releases forum."

o why not, but if forbidding commercial use is banned, should Minetest go full GPL? That the question if the scope is wider than the Creative Commons NC clause.

I would say that question gets to the very point of all of it and that the answer should be yes. Out of curiosity, why was it that Minetest went LGPL to begin with? Most Free Software games go GPL. Going LGPL has unnecessarily led to opening a Pandora's Box of of licensing nightmares; as many in this post have well documented in this discussion.

The basic Minetest-game is little more than a testing pack. The game requires massive amounts of mods to be playable as anything fun.

When the time comes that enough Minetest mods can be cobbled together into a bundle/game that could make Minetest competitive against Minecraft, it would make sense to be able to leverage that bundle as a ready to play game for monetary distribution. That would be able to fund the project and site as well as allow other people to split off the work into forks and charge as well.

The market would then be able to decide if there is any financial value herein and to what extent. That would be the natural end result. Just like when the DOOM engine was made GPL. People have now bundled it with Freedoom as a wad base, made a game on top of that, and have successfully sold it at a profit on Android. The same should be possible with Minetest.

Yet, when that day comes, it's going to be a mess because Minetest mods are all over the place with their licensing. Does the "WTF" license even hold up in court? It sounds like a joke and an easy way to say, "Do whatever you want." Well, when people start to bundle these mods into software products for a profit will these modders feel the same way then? About half the Minetest mods I run into are "licensed" in such a lax way.

Trying to figure out what mods can be brought into a commercial product and which can't be is going to be a legal minefield. Was that the intent of choosing the LGPL? To make commercialization an uphill battle?

If that's the case, why is the code under any sort of Free Software License at all? Stallman has written at length that Free Software must be able to be used commercially to truly be Free Software. That's why MAME was not considered Free Software for years; because it was not until recently that they finally shifted to the GPL. It used to be a license that forbid commercial use. It was a big fight switching over too.

It would make the most sense to me that the license be switched to the GPL sooner than later so that it's a smaller fight over it now rather than a bigger one down the road.

[Wuzzy]

Thank you! My feelings, exactly!
I wish people would really stop thinking of people wanting to earn money are the devil's spawn and must be somehow fought. And I say that as someone who totally hates capitalism.

Thankfully, almost all mods and subgames I see in these forums count as perfectly free software. Mods which explicitly forbid so-called “commercial use” are extremely rare. Thank god! Still, as a matter of principle, I absolutely think we should not endorse any non-free mods by promoting them in the forums.
Note that the “WIP Mods” section can still remain a “free for all”, I'm only talking about Mod Releases.

I REALLY wish the core devs would appear in this discussion.
Not a single word from them so far. :-(


But whether MT is under a copyleft license or not is completely off-topic and won't affect the licenses of mods.
Same about WTFPL (but I think you're WAY too paranoid if you avoid WTFPL. Nobody got ever sued over this AFAIK).

[Wuzzy]

FYI: Somehow, an -NC mod managed to sneak into Mod Releases:
viewtopic.php?t=8098

[Wuzzy]

FYI: Somehow, an -NC mod managed to sneak into Mod Releases:
viewtopic.php?t=8098

The forum rules only disallow no-derivative mods. NC mods are fine. viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1271

@rubenwardy:

Any mod that disallows derivatives cannot be published on this forum. These include CC NoDerivs and pretty much any closed source licenses.

It does not say that NonCommercial is OK. Sadly, this point is a bit vague.
But NonCommercial licenses are definitely not open source licenses (nor free software licenses, of course). So they're closed source. NonCommercial violates rule 1 of the Open Source Definition:

1. Free Redistribution

The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

https://opensource.org/definition

Also, there are a LOT of practical problems with NonCommercial licenses.
If you still insist that it's OK to deny players the right of commercial redistribution, please let's discuss this here:
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=18258

[rubenwardy]

I personally don't like closed source licenses and wouldn't use any such mods. However, as it's not against the current forum rules it's not something I can move.

[prestidigitator]

Personally I'd have the most problem with NC licenses if the "owner" also concurrently distributes under a commercial license. That's rotten. It's kinda like a "first hit's free; then you gotta pay," model. Otherwise, IMO there should be room for the assertion that one's own work is intended purely for social/collective welfare rather than the accumulation of profit/wealth/power.

(In the interest of full disclosure, my position is that intellectual property is totally illegitimate anyway. But that's a whole other political debate which really isn't best to get into here.)