license

• In short, you may play the game, duplicate it however you want, spread it and even sell it if you want to, but whatever you do you must always do it according to the GPL license(s) we use.
  • Those are: GPL2 or later and also, to be more explicit, the GPL3. Which one of them you use is up to you.
  • A part of those licenses demand that a copy of the license is to be included with the game when you spread the game and/or its related material.
  • A very important point is also that the licenses are copyleft and self-propagating: However you use WTactics and/or it’s material the end product would still be licensed under the same licenses as WTactics itself.
  • The two paragraphs above are two important points from the licenses, but there are others. You must read the licenses in order to fully understand your rights and obligations. We also recommend that you read the following explanatory texts on the subject: Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses, GPLv3 Discussion Draft FAQ and a white paper called GPLv2 vs. GPLv3: The two seminal open source licenses, their roots, consequences, and repercussions.
• Breaking down the licensing into a more detailed manner reveals that:
  • All art used from Battle for Wesnoth is under GPL2 or later according to its maintainers (revision from 17 March 2008, at 01:31). For questions about the licensing of the BfW art we kindly ask that you contact the BfW developers, as we have no say in the matter.
  • All a) original artwork in this project and b) non-original but legally acquired artwork for this project is licensed using the GPL2 or later and, for the sake of clarity, the GPL3 license.
  • The GPL2 and later and the GPL3 are compatible licenses.
• In accordance with the license(s) all game related material released under the GPL(s) is available in it’s “preferred format(s)” either from this site and its subdomains or by personal request to us via e-mail should you not be able to find what you seek.
• In some cases we are forced to use other licenses than the GPL. When that occurs it will usually still be very liberal and open licenses, such as for example the SIL license for font usage. Because of this you must, if you want to use anything that is related to our project, always take a look in the README-file that is often included in any directory containing materials licensed by us or by a third party. The README always contains the accurate licensing information for the piece of data which it is associated with, which is usually whatever is in the directory and/or it’s subdirectories if they should lack README-files of their own.
• Whatever information is on our site is overruled by what can be found in the README documents in our official trunk(s)/server(s) if the information would ever be contradictory.
• The project’s founder (snowdrop) and/or representatives explicitly appointed by that individual also has a reserved right to, at any time, revise which and how open source license(s) will be used for this project’s original content (this effectively excludes all content that is BfW-original and/or that originates somehow from the BfW project). This paragraph exists to save the project from, at present time, unforeseen and unwanted problems that could relate to the license we currently use and that might be discovered in the future. If indeed license usage(s) are revised it will be done so that the project is guaranteed to stay free and open source, as defined by the Open Source Initiative.
• Please contact us if you have any questions.

co-work

We strongly believe in co-work between projects and have no problems whatsoever with collaboration, co-work and co-operation in whatever forms that would be pragmatical and beneficial for all parties involved. As as a team of independent developers we see the many advantages that are there when teams or projects unite towards common goals. We are likely to have both similar goals and challenges, and invite all of you that believe in co-work to contact us so that we can have a dialogue where we match our needs and skill sets to hopefully agree on something.

art licensing

The same goes for us dual-licensing our art assets or if you want to buy in on future art assets that can better match your needs: Please contact us and we’ll discuss the terms and what you have in mind. We would love to dual-license the works if you have interest of using them but do not want to use the GPL license or another GPL-compatible license for your project. It would be great if you are interested in sharing art resources with us.

copyright violations?

We work for free and have spent thousands of dollars and hours of work on this project, and give our assets to the world. We mainly use the GPL2 or later license. If you ever see our assets like for example art being used in a non-GPL project please report it to us and we will reward you for your trouble.

We often get requests by developers that want to use our assets in non-GPL projects and we always turn them down. Only time that we would accept that our assets are used in non-GPL compatible licensed projects is if we come to an explicit and written agreement where a a buy-in occurs for dual-licensing. Usually that is a good idea as it heavily lowers costs for all parties involved: We still get to keep our game open sourced, and our new partners get to use the license they want.

We chose to use the GPL because it’s terms are the same and apply to x, regardless if x is code, art or some other data. The GPL guarantees a strong copyleft, open source and self-propagation. Any and all usage of our assets in non-GPL projects is a license violation and we will pursue such matters legally. In contrast to some other open source projects we do not share their notion that code and other assets, such as for example art, can always be logically separated or that the distinction between code and other assets is somehow in itself relevant. The GPL clearly states that it can apply to anything. We therefore consider our art assets to have the identical protection using the GPL as code would have due to the license not changing itself in relations to what is licensed.

Our experience is that a majority of those that want to use our assets with non-GPL compatible licensing of their own want to do so in ways where our assets are sufficiently and obviously tangled up with their own (be it code or something else) that their end product is always less functional, broken or incomplete in relevant ways without our assets being present as a part of it. That fact proves the central role and real meaning of our assets for the non-GPL compatible product, in turn making our assets equivalent to for example vital GPL-code which can not be separated from the rest of the project in a meaningful way.

In the court of law the intents of the license, our intents in using it and the alleged violators intent would also be of huge importance for a verdict. As for what the FSF intends with the GPL it is overly clear and can be read on their domain. We have also specified our own intentions in this paragraph and would reiterate them again with other words should they be unclear here and we get a request.