r1q2 and downloading maps

[[BTF]Jehar]

Haha.  Technically that's 100% correct.  The GPL is precisely what makes that possible.   But can you imagine the amount of grief they'd have gotten for doing that?  (Edit: and I mean grief from the general public, not the developers who actually^(*) know what they're doing when they license their software.)

That is, more or less, what I meant by the above statement. You know this crowd, I know this crowd - if you were Valve, would you *really* want to step in the midst of the community engine people? Anywho, you definitely have spent more time reading the GPL than I have, so I have to agree when you say that it was all by the book. Overall, however, I still stand that the whole thing reeks a bit.

[quadz]

That is, more or less, what I meant by the above statement. You know this crowd, I know this crowd - if you were Valve, would you *really* want to step in the midst of the community engine people? Anywho, you definitely have spent more time reading the GPL than I have, so I have to agree when you say that it was all by the book. Overall, however, I still stand that the whole thing reeks a bit.

For what it's worth, I thought it might be worthwhile to attempt to contrast the GPL with a less restrictive open source license, such as the NetBSD license.  The hope was that when one can see the extremely minimal restrictions some developers deliberately choose to place on their own works, it may become apparent that when developers choose an open source licence, they are typically aware of the contrasts described here:

http://tastyspleen.net/quake/forums/index.php?board=43;topic=8216.0

And thus, they are aware, whether they choose the GPL, or a less restrictive open source licence, that anyone choosing to distribute a derivative work is fully allowed to charge whatever they want for the binaries.


Regards,

quadz