That is an excellent clarification and recommendation. I'll do that below.Mac_Fife wrote:I'm no longer expecting anyone to belive me but, but what we have from Cyan is what is in my June 3 post and is essentially the same as I presented at the AGM. There is no more than that. What was sent back to Cyan in response are the questions and comments that are in green in that post - OK, re-worded and re-formatted a bit, but essentially the same material. Comment on that if you wish - really, please do.
This is mostly what my unfortunate rant was aimed at. A general frustration that a company which is more a collection of a handful of people than an actual company is still acting like a big paranoid company. I'd expect them to have opinions, not just official statements or silence, and it's disheartening to see them acting that way. Maybe someone much more pragmatic than I could ever be would be unsurprised at it.Only keep in mind that we have no idea yet if that response is simply the very quick initial thoughts of Tony alone or if they represent the collective, official view of Cyan: My belief is that Rand has not yet commented on any of this.
I'm assuming you've asked for clarifications on which assets they mean. A specific breakdown (which could be provided for them if it would help speed things along and provide a common point of reference) of a list of asset categories may be useful. I touched on that lightly in the original localization request text. We should probably elaborate for them, unless they're already committed to something (in which case it's all somewhat useless).Mac_Fife wrote: Cyan has read the Community Licensing Request and likes the idea and feels it is "ready to proceed down a path which would license certain assets". I note the use of the phrase "certain assets", but for now can only speculate that may mean a limited trial to see how things go, but it could also mean they are constrained on what they can license.
Non-commercial use is pretty standard and easy to specify. Unfortunately it's much harder to define during the actual usage what constitutes "commercial", as I'm sure they've deal with then it comes to the donation system for CavCon. I know I've read some articles denouncing the unintentionally damaging consequences of non-commercial provisions, but I can't seem to find them at the moment to share.Mac_Fife wrote: A proviso on that is that the assets will be made available for community development of MOUL, and things like porting to other engines, or commercial (for profit) use will not be allowed.
This is probably something we can start discussing as a community (and there's been some already in the past), at least on a per-category basis as mentioned above. For the art assets themselves, Creative Commons (by-nc) may be a good way to go as it's relatively simple for non-legal-minded people to use and understand, and should fit their requirements of allowing derivative works without, as I understand it, claiming any ownership over them. It also provides for a dis-allowance of commercial work.Mac_Fife wrote: Cyan also wishes to make it clear that in licensing any assets, it is not abandoning its rights to those assets or otherwise placing them in the public domain. While Cyan wishes to make it clear that it retains copyright on the original assets, it doesn't want to extend that to unfairly claiming ownership of any derivative work. I'd infer that means that derivative works could have thier own license (and certainly copyright), so long as Cyan's original copyright and license are acknowledged.
Personally I think this is a very bad idea and as I've stated elsewhere illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the process on their side. Their attempts to restrict things only serve to strangle legitimate contributions while doing nothing to stem the people who have no interest in moral or legal obligations. As branan pointed out before, we will want to, by necessity, keep track of who is working on what simply for logistical reasons. This would be a transient registry, simply for the purpose of asset locking since there are few better merge strategies if I understand that thread properly, and not something Cyan would need to concern themselves with directly.Mac_Fife wrote: Associated with the previous item, Cyan wishes to maintain a list/register of developers using the licensed Cyan assets. In effect, this seems to be a desire to assign usage rights to individual licensees rather than declaring an "open house". I don't think it's really an attempt to restrict who can use the assets so much as reinforcing the point that the assets are "licensed by Cyan". There is no information on the mechanics of this yet.
If their concern is to retain their license and copyright, the law already does that sufficiently, provided they select an effective license. Anything more elaborate than that will hinder what few contributors remain, and would serve no real purpose but to add a very inappropriate business-like bureaucratic process onto something which will not likely thrive in such an environment without the attending processes and other such aspect that no one has the money or interest to provide.
They're certainly within their rights to require it, but I'd strongly question them to find a good reason to justify it. As it is, it seems more like a knee-jerk sort of "must have a process" sort of thinking, before they've identified the problem it's trying to solve. If we knew the underlying concerns, it may be easier to either accept this solution, or suggest more effective ones.