From:
Omnibus
Subject: QuakeWorld Revitalization Project...
I'd just like to bring up
a small issue with this project. Has anyone noticed that their project
is a violation of the GPL that Quake was released under? The issue is
the fact that their proxy is closed source, and linked in to the Quake
source. The GPL prohibits this. They *can* work around it by creating
a completely separate proxy system, similar to Qizmo.
I hate to sound like a flamer
or anything of the sort, but this kind of violation of the GPL is not
a good thing, and people *should* know of it. I have corresponded with
RMS (Richard M Stallman) of the Free Software Foundation, and he agrees
that the project as it stands is a clear violation of the GPL.
I feel that this needs to
be brought up, there has been corespondence
that I know of with the QuakeLives project members, and their general
reply is that they won't release the source to anyone but id software.
This message is just a heads
up, please don't post my name or address in relation to this.
<name removed>
Here is the relevant email
from RMS:
Subject: Re: GPL
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2000 00:31:32 -0700 (MST)
From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
To: xxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.net
CC: gnu@gnu.org
References: 1
Can this source be linked
with closed source libraries, specifically, dynamically linked?
We don't use the terms "closed
source" or "open source"--those are the terms used by
the Open Source Movement. We have no connection with that, we're in
the Free Software movement. See http://www.gnu.org/server/fsf-html-style-sheet.html
for an explanation of the difference and why it is important.
But if you mean non-free
libraries, then in general the answer is that the GPL does not permit
this. The copyright holders of Quake can give permission for it as a
special exception, if they want to.
The delimma is with the
Quake Lives project, which proposes creating closed sourced proxies
for the Quake server/client, which would be linked in with the Quake
source.
By making these proxies
non-free, you would be taking advantage of the free software community,
without contributing it. That is not good conduct. I would have to urge
ask the Quake developers not to give
permission for this.