Hi, I'm Sean 'Brien (friends call me "Diggity"), and I've been discussing
this on the list kde-games-devel, where someone suggested I try kde-devel.
I'm currently working on some more AMR themes copied from the web and the
Windows program Neko98 (based on oneko). I also would like to see much of
the code (or at least similar functionality) from Neko98 ported to KDE and
merged with the AMR codebase. I think it would be wise to include most
of the themes from Neko98 (and maybe the ones I found on the web) in the AMR
release.
More details and some screenshots here if you're interested:
There seems to be some confusion about the legality of using the Neko98 code.
To clarify:
I have contacted all of the authors for the themes I am working on and I have
heard back from a few of them already. None so far have objected to
releasing the themes under the GPL, although I'm not sure this is even
necessary as most of the themes were included in the Neko98 release.
As far as the Neko98 source goes -
The portions from Masayuki Koba's oneko are free software, licensed under the
GPL (although the GPL isn't included in the Neko98 release). *The rest of the
code (by David Banner) is open source, and might even be considered free
software. The author seems a bit confused about the GPL (which he calls
the "GNU public license"), and his major concern seems to be "free as in
beer". *He says, "You are free to use the source files in any way you
wish, as long as credit is given.", provided the software remains monetarily
free. I have contacted him about releasing the whole program under the GPL,
but have not yet received a reply. Still, I see no legal barrier to using
the code (does anyone else?). I'm including the license at the bottom of
this e-mail.
As far as porting it is concerned, I know very little about C. *However, the
code seems clean and the Windows-specific sections are nicely separated (and
should be relatively easy to alter or remove).
The source code is made available here, see license.txt:
Full text of license.txt:
Neko 95/98 Source Code License
*
Note: Because Neko was originally written by
Masayuki Koba, and ported from his X-Windows
source code by David Harvey, different portions
of the Neko source code carry different licenses.
*
*
IF YU WANT T CHARGE FR YUR SFTWARE
If you use any of the following files in your software,
you MAY NT charge for it as it is covered by the GNU
public license: *
* * Neko.h * *Neko.cpp
* * Neko98.h *Neko98.cpp
*
*
If you use any of the following files in your software,
you MAY charge for it, but must send 20% of the profit or
from that software, or $1000 to the author (address at the bottom).
* * Pet.h * * * * * * Pe1t.cpp
* * DesktopHack.h * * DesktopHack.cpp
* * DesktopPet.h * * *DesktopPet.cpp
* * ATopPet.h *ATopPet.cpp
*
*
All other files can be used freely as long as credit is given.
*
*
IF YU D NT WANT T CHARGE FR YUR SFTWARE
You are free to use the source files in any way you wish,
as long as credit is given.
*
*
AUTHR'S ADDRESS
dharvey (AT) btinternet (DOT) com
For security reasons, mail me and I'll give out my address.

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Monday 22 May 2006 06:53 pm, Michael Pyne wrote:
Monday 22 May 2006 16:51, Sean 'Brien wrote:
The portions from Masayuki Koba's oneko are free software, licensed under
the GPL (although the GPL isn't included in the Neko98 release). *The
rest of the code (by David Banner) is open source, and might even be
considered free software. The author seems a bit confused about the GPL
(which he calls the "GNU public license"), and his major concern seems to
be "free as in beer". *He says, "You are free to use the source files in
any way you wish, as long as credit is given.", provided the software
remains monetarily free.

IANAL, but this would not stand under the GPL. The GPL actually explicitly
gives authors the right to sell their software, as long as the source code
is available. Likewise with BSD-licensed software. In fact I think the
first release of BSD was for $1000, but the authors only expected to make
that one sale. ;)

IF YU WANT T CHARGE FR YUR SFTWARE

If you use any of the following files in your software,
you MAY NT charge for it as it is covered by the GNU
public license: *
* * Neko.h * *Neko.cpp
* * Neko98.h *Neko98.cpp

If it is GPL, then his explanation is wrong. You can charge for the
software, but you must provide the source, and you must provide the source
under the GPL.

If you use any of the following files in your software,
you MAY charge for it, but must send 20% of the profit or
from that software, or $1000 to the author (address at the bottom).
* * Pet.h * * * * * * Pe1t.cpp
* * DesktopHack.h * * DesktopHack.cpp
* * DesktopPet.h * * *DesktopPet.cpp
* * ATopPet.h *ATopPet.cpp

I'm not sure about this, I thought that if you included GPL source in a
program and distributed the program, you had to offer all of the program
source under the GPL as well. So he may have to GPL license these files as
well.

You may want to have him review the license requirements to make sure
everything is right with regards to that before seeing about copying the
source.

Regards,
- Michael Pyne

Agreed, this is the "virus" aspect of the GPL. Any code linked to GPL code
MUST be GPL or it is in violation of the terms of the license if it is to be
distributed.

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Agreed, this is the "virus" aspect of the GPL. Any code linked to GPL code
MUST be GPL or it is in violation of the terms of the license if it is to
be distributed.

Alright, what's the next step? I need to know what to do about the license
(Should I contact the FSF if the author doesn't get back to me? And so on)
and I also need to know who to contact about AMR. I can at least make the
themes I've gotten permission for available for the AMR release (who decides
what goes in?).


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Monday 22 May 2006 08:02 pm, Sean 'Brien wrote:
Agreed, this is the "virus" aspect of the GPL. Any code linked to GPL
code MUST be GPL or it is in violation of the terms of the license if it
is to be distributed.

Alright, what's the next step? I need to know what to do about the license
(Should I contact the FSF if the author doesn't get back to me? And so
on) and I also need to know who to contact about AMR. I can at least
make the themes I've gotten permission for available for the AMR release
(who decides what goes in?).
>
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>unsubscribe <<

If the dude doesn't get back to you about it, I'd get in touch with the FSF if
he doesn't fix the licensing issues. As far as the AMR themes are concerned,
I'd first check that they aren't based on copyrighted works, like a few I've
seen for neko98, and if there ARE items under copyright of another author or
entity, you'll have to check with them first. that is cleared, then
contact the maintainer as listed in the about box for AMR.

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