[wacampbell]

In the coming days we will be modifying our documentation to reflect adoption of the GNU GPL V3 license, the most widely used open source license.

And in the spirit of this change, we encourage all content providers to adopt similar provisions for the work that they contribute to the community. Providing free and open access to the source files for their models, skins, routes and activities will enhance the accuracy and breadth of content available to OR users.

[thegrindre]

Are you suggesting that I release all content to my models? The source files, the bmp files and everything else that went into making the model?
I'd like to say that my models are NOT open source models. They are freeware only.
I have no intentions of releasing everything that went into making them. :oldstry:

:good:

[captain_bazza]

I would seriously think of doing a combination of freeware / GNU licences.

Cheers Bazza

[thegrindre]

An open source model would leave it wide open for anyone to modify it in any way they wanted to and offer it as their own model after I did all the original hard work to begin with.
No thank you. My models are not for open source. I don't give my source files away.

:lol2:

[Matej Pacha]

We are talking about software codes, not the content. It would be impossible to change the original MSTS content license and the same situation is with your models. I have no problem to switch to GNU since the code is already open and I believe there is someone who is changing the code and using it as he wishes. The only difference is that now he can do this with no legal restrictions but he must specify his contribution. The concept leads to better code-growing process. Some developers will be able to use our software in commercial or university scope what brings a great advertising. And who knows, they may become ORTS developers. Their ideas would be a great inspiration for us at least.
These are my reasons for agreement. What would be great to have is a list of projects based on the original ORTS software and a description of changes, placed somewhere on our website.

Matej

[Genma Saotome]

I would have preferred the Creative Commons license(s) over Gnu as the default first choice to consider but I expect the differences for software source code are pretty nominal.

As for content I do like the CC method -- they give you several choices... (See this to make your choice) one of which is essential the same as what we've all seen in MSTS freeware, what they call "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported": you may made mods (e.g., reskins) but no commercial use. Even has code you can copy & paste into your readme file. FWIW, here's a summary for laymen of that choice

In some other thread I wondered about the feasibility of authors depositing their source into a "bank" for holding a certain length of time, the end of which the source becomes open under one of the Open Source licenses. Essentially "It's mine for the next n years but after that I don't care anymore" where n is chosen by the author.

[cjakeman]

Genma Saotome, on 12 May 2013 - 10:25 AM, said:

I would have preferred the Creative Commons license(s) over Gnu as the default first choice to consider but I expect the differences for software source code are pretty nominal.

Creative Commons is good for content but the CC people recommend against using it for software.

[Csantucci]

Well, I see it's official now: the latest release of the ORTS manual states

" Open Rails is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
any later version"

I already have a question:
I'm not an expert on licensing and I have some problem in understanding all legal statements of such license. I'm I correct if I say that I can make publicly available for free on a website a modified release of OR (e.g. with double overhead wire :naughty: )? Do I have to attach there also the modified source files? What about copyright notices?

[gpz]

Actually you can, and you have to provide the source files too.

The trick in GPL licensed distribution is that any unmaintained fork will die, simply just because the maintained "official" one provides more and more functionality as time goes on, and no one will stay at the old, forked version.

[Csantucci]

Thanks Peter,
do I have to provide only the source files that are modified and a link to the actual OR website where all other source files are present, or do I have also to provide the source files that have remained unaltered?