What does ODEs BSD license mean?

[pebble]

In particular what does "Redistributions in binary form" include?
Does that include games using ODE?
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[Jon Watte (ODE)-2]

pebble wrote:
> In particular what does "Redistributions in binary form" include?
> Does that include games using ODE?
>
>  

I would assume so.

However, you should realize that we are volunteer software developers,
not lawyers with a license to practice in your locality. Thus, we cannot
interpret any particular license agreement in the context of your
specific use and needs. If you don't understand what the license means
to you and how it applies in your particular case, the *only* legally
defensible action for you is to pay a lawyer to interpret it for you and
give you actionable legal advise.

Anyone *not* licensed to practice law in your locality, trying to give
you advise on how a particular legal text (such as a license) would
apply to your particular use and situation, would be doing you a
dis-service, and would themselves be up for both civil and possibly
criminal liability. You have been warned!

Sincerely,

jw





--

  Revenge is the most pointless and damaging of human desires.


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[pebble]

Thanks for the advice Jon. But I must admit it is a bit disheartening.
If ensuring you are in full compliance with the BSD license requires
you hiring an american lawyer then the use of the software is, in
effect, far from free.

Would it be possible to have examples of license compliance in some of
the more common cases posted on the home page, or is it a bad idea? I
bet there are many, many developers using ODE for iPhone games,
sometimes free games, who like to know how to properly accredit ODE
without spending lots of money (I know I would).

pebble

On Oct 12, 9:41 pm, Jon Watte <jwa...@...> wrote:

> pebble wrote:
> > In particular what does "Redistributions in binary form" include?
> > Does that include games using ODE?
>
> I would assume so.
>
> However, you should realize that we are volunteer software developers,
> not lawyers with a license to practice in your locality. Thus, we cannot
> interpret any particular license agreement in the context of your
> specific use and needs. If you don't understand what the license means
> to you and how it applies in your particular case, the *only* legally
> defensible action for you is to pay a lawyer to interpret it for you and
> give you actionable legal advise.
>
> Anyone *not* licensed to practice law in your locality, trying to give
> you advise on how a particular legal text (such as a license) would
> apply to your particular use and situation, would be doing you a
> dis-service, and would themselves be up for both civil and possibly
> criminal liability. You have been warned!
>
> Sincerely,
>
> jw
>
> --
>
>   Revenge is the most pointless and damaging of human desires.

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[Jon Watte (ODE)-2]

pebble wrote:
> Thanks for the advice Jon. But I must admit it is a bit disheartening.
> If ensuring you are in full compliance with the BSD license requires
> you hiring an american lawyer then the use of the software is, in
> effect, far from free.
>  

It only requires the hire of a US lawyer if you believe that you cannot
comply with it fully by reading and interpreting it yourself.

The question comes when you feel that you need someone else to interpret
the license for you. If you need someone else to interpret a legal
document for you, then that someone else should be licensed to do so, or
you'll be in trouble.

Note that you can't ask the maker/issuer of the license for
clarification, because the maker of the license has already (presumably)
stated exactly what he wants the license to say, and saying anything
else would serve only to confuse the license, rather than clarify. If
the maker were to say something more or something else, that would, in
effect, mean changing the license. (It's totally OK to request a maker
change the license, but the maker may for practical reasons not want to
do that.)

I find this very logical, and I find trying to ask non-legal people to
interpret legal documents for you, instead of you doing it yourself,
something I want to discourage.

Finally, there are lots of examples and discussions on the web regarding
the BSD license, which you may want to look into, assuming you believe
that those examples apply to your situation and you don't take them as
legal advise. It's much better to go find out about a license in a forum
dedicated to open source licenses, than it is in a forum dedicated to
game physics simulation software.

Sincerely,

jw


--

  Revenge is the most pointless and damaging of human desires.


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[Daniel K. O.-2]

pebble escreveu:
> Thanks for the advice Jon. But I must admit it is a bit disheartening.
> If ensuring you are in full compliance with the BSD license requires
> you hiring an american lawyer then the use of the software is, in
> effect, far from free.

The need for a lawyer comes from the copyright law, not ODE's license.
Either you understand how copyright law applies to software, or you
don't (and in this case it's wise to get help from somebody who
understands). You might want to read up on copyright law on Wikipedia,
for starters.

What you are asking us is if the derivative work (a game that uses ODE)
can be considered a redistribution of the copyrighted material (ODE). I
believe it is, in most parts of the world, but IANAL. In that case the
BSD license requires you to also redistribute the copyright notice
somewhere. If your game have some documentation page, append it there;
or if the user can access the program directory, copy the txt file there.


PS: I realized that the BSD license was not being archived in the
tarballs; I re-uploaded the 0.11.1 files with the file included.

--
Daniel K. O.
"The only way to succeed is to build success yourself"

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[Daniel K. O.-2]

pebble escreveu:
> Would it be possible to have examples of license compliance in some of
> the more common cases

I just checked World of Goo; it appends the ODE copyright notice to the
readme.html file in the application dir, for the PC version; the Wii
version has the copyright notice in the user guide.


--
Daniel K. O.
"The only way to succeed is to build success yourself"

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[pebble]

Thank you for taking the time to answer this guys! I guess this is
really on the side of what this forum is meant to discuss and I will
pursue the issue elsewhere on the web until I am sure I have the full
understanding. Thanks for providing an example Daniel. Finally let me
commend the work you do, ODE is a great piece of software!

On Oct 17, 8:40 am, "Daniel K. O." <danielko.lis...@...> wrote:

> pebble escreveu:
>
> > Would it be possible to have examples of license compliance in some of
> > the more common cases
>
> I just checked World of Goo; it appends the ODE copyright notice to the
> readme.html file in the application dir, for the PC version; the Wii
> version has the copyright notice in the user guide.
>
> --
> Daniel K. O.
> "The only way to succeed is to build success yourself"

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