License
Hi ,
I basically only registered to tell you the following. I think project is a great idea and many thanks to all people involved. I have no experience with unreal technology, but with creating (spare time) games in C++ with Ogre3D and modding Duke Nukem 3D (long ago). However, I’m traveling atm for at least 3 more months so it would be a while before I could start getting involved.
Whatever, what I want to say is this: please consider and discuss the licenses for code and art early, that means now.
Changing the license later can be very hard to impossible ( that ever committed anything must agree). And the license can have big implications for the future of the project.
E.g. I normally only support projects with very liberal licenses (e.g. MIT, CC0, CC-BY). That is because if I provide code I want to be able to use that code in my own (potentially closed source) projects too. E.g. if I add new features to the character controller I want to be able to use that in my own work too, that is hard if I cannot use a single line of the rest of the character controller code because it is GPL licensed.
Of course there are very different opinions about that. There are people that will only support the project if it is GPL licensed. And the opposite people, and those that don’t care.
The same for art work. Would be cool if the license would be clear.
I have seen many projects getting problems if the license is not agreed on in the beginning:
- All coders providing their work free to use for anything (MIT) and then in the end many artists insisting on adding “not for redistribution” to their stuff.
- Some artists gathered to improve something completely open (CC0) with the original lead designer, only to have 2 of them in the end insist on “non-commercial”. All other members of the team assumed the work would be CC0 again, but it did not help. So the result is a custom license for the new iteration. That project is now basically dead, because nobody wants to continue work on their result because of the license, and redoing their work seems crazy.
- Some projects changed license, e.g. from LGPL to MIT. can be a huge effort as said. But it often brings more people to the project, those who would not have considered it before because of the viral nature of GPL/LGPL.
I would prefer MIT and CC0 or CC-BY with an “unreal engine exception”: code is licensed under MIT license (add link) and the art content under CC0 (add link), with the additional exception that the usage must not violate the Unreal Engine 4 EULA (add link).
Of course then theoretically people could take the work and sell it on steam/turbo squid. But how many would? How successful would it be if the same thing is available for free? [Edit: And even with GPL they could do that, they just have to provide a link to the source to the buyers, e.g. hidden somewhere in the credits.]
I’m very happy when people use my stuff in their projects, I’m proud of it. That’s the power of open source, it’s a give and take.
I have no problem with people having a different opinion, but the license should be made clear for code and art and it should be discussed as early as possible.