Re: [Nel] Nel & GPL Licensing Question

[Loic Dachary]

Valerio Santinelli writes:
 > This also means that if you're not distributing the server to end users you
 > can keep the source code of your game server for yourself.

        You are allowed do this. It's clearly a case that was not
envisionned when the GNU GPL was written, more than ten years ago.
However, you're taking chances, the situation may change anytime in
the future and the Free Software community will rightfully resent
someone doing this.

        Proprietary licenses were modified in the past years to
include special provisions to further restrict your ability to run
proprietary programs on internet server. It now seem natural to
everyone that a given piece of proprietary software is not treated in
the same way when run on a machine without public network server
capability. Something needs to be done for Free Software too.

        As it is often the case, mutating Free Software licenses to
take this fact in account requires a lot more time. Working for
freedom is a long process, adding locks to a jail is a lot easier. In
a nutshell, nowadays, software available to the end user is
increasingly a mix of software installed on her local machine and
software run on a remote server. This is the "ASP issue". Preserving
the user freedom in this context is a complex problem.

        Fortunately, Nevrax was smart enough to include the "or any
later version" part in all NeL license notices. The immediate
consequence of these few words is that you won't be able to abuse the
server part of NeL in the way suggested above forever. If you're
running a company it means you're building your business on quick
sand. You may make a few bucks and lots of enemies during a short time
but that's all you'll ever get. If you're an individual not seeking
profit it only means you're too shy to show your work and be assured
noone will ever resent you for that ;-) 

        The "or any later version" means that whenever the next
version of the GNU GPL is available, anyone having a copy of NeL will
have the permission to upgrade to this license. One of the rare things
that are publicly known regarding the next version of the GNU GPL is
that it will address the "ASP issue". It may be something like:

"If the Program as you received it is intended to interact with users
through a computer network and if, in the version you received, any
user interacting with the Program was given the opportunity to request
transmission to that user of the Program's complete source code, you
must not remove that facility from your modified version of the
Program or work based on the Program, and must offer an equivalent
opportunity for all users interacting with your Program through a
computer network to request immediate transmission by HTTP of the
complete source code of your modified version or other derivative
work."

        My conclusion is that you can legaly keep the changes you've
done to a live NeL server for yourself but it would be morally flawed
to do so. We, software authors, have a great power, the power to deny
or grant freedom on the software we produce. With great power comes
great responsibilities. Even if it was legal for me to hire children in
my company I would not do it. Even if it was legal for me to kill my
competitors I would not do it. Even though it's legal for me to run a
live NeL server without releasing my changes I will not do it.

        I hope I'm making sense and that everyone will chose to behave
well. Who would want to be the bad guy for such a short lived "cheat
mode" anyway ;-)

        Cheers,

-- 
Loic   Dachary         http://www.dachary.org/  address@hidden
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