quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
i know that my question was largly hypothetical and unlikely to ever happen(unless the copyright expiration date changes).

But here how i see it.. the original creator of the software owns the copyright to it, otherwise the GPL license could never be enforced, as people could do whatever they wanted with it(make it proprietary), he then allows others to use and modify the source code aslong as they follow the rules he sets.. the key point is that legally he will allways be the sole copyright holder, nomatter who contributes code after that they will have no copyright claims(am i right with this?)... can that person legally reverse the GPL and make it proprietary? i guess they couldnt stop others using the software under the GPL conditions, but he would be legally able to produce his own proprietary software?(cause he still owns the copyright)

No. People who contribute code retain the rights to their contributions. The original author can''t issue a non-GPL license of software with someone else''s GPLed contributions without getting the permission of everyone who''s contributed to the code.

My interpretation is that you could sell a game with a GPL''d engine but proprietary content, where the content consists of artwork, music, and a script to drive the game''s plot. Users would be free to redistribute your engine and its source code, but not the content; so you could potentially make money this way.

And if you think content is easily replaced, look at all the LucasArts games which share the Scumm engine, or the several megabytes of scripts that drive the Ultima7 games.

jsf, there is a huge difference between a large game producer and hobbyists.

Of course. I''m not saying that everyone should use the GPL. In particular, anyone spending huge amounts of money to develop a cutting-edge engine will probably NOT want to GPL it.

what you have to know too about the GPL is that no commercial use could be done. LGPL can do that: ie. A NanoSoft company could use your LGPL engine freely and make a game on it, for making money. you''ll surely be disappointed.
GPL prevents you from that. Theorically... as it''s not licensed, any company could reuse your code partially as a complete ghost... that''s the worst thing could happen (on all non official copyrighted licenses.).
The GPL would claim all its rights the day all softwares will be open sourceS... so later. we could compare then, what''s the real differences about what you do, what they do, what everyone do for doing this specific stuff.

GPL is good if you wrote it a big part alone, quite conceptually well done, so other programmers could join easily. But if you just begin, there are so many unrespectfullness people that could steal all what you done... It''s you to decide what you want. The sources are what concretly you thought and modelize the stuff you wanted to make. It''s quite precious. Otherwise, open them would permit to make the best manner...

i hope my ''charrabia'' could be understood.

Odin: You''re thinking about what you might lose under the GPL. And you''re right. I get paid to write EDA software, and I certainly don''t plan on doing it for fun and then releasing it under GPL.

IF I thought I could write a modern 3D game engine that could be used commercially, I wouldn''t make that free either.

But that''s unlikely. I''ve been working on a ''retro'' engine and tools that are at least 10 years out-of-date. I''m not losing any money making them GPL. But, I have received a LOT of help from other developers who were willing to work on GPL''d software. And our ''product'' has had 10,000''s of downloads. For me, it''s been a lot of fun, and given me lots of experience in an area of software development that I normally wouldn''t be in.