Answering the Core Question.

[Ken L]

The topic (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?47443-The-Fantasygrounds-Content-License-change-and-how-it-affects-contributors) was intended to focus on the license change. You and I both know Moon that there are longer chains of flamewars and this hardly was one compared to the others which have been pages long on other topics. If you read the responses, I was looking for the smite works response, I'm not interested in getting into arguments with your defenders so I mainly side stepped them. But it's your movie theater so you do what you want.

But there is one question that was repeatedly asked, and dodged by SmiteWorks that I need an answer to.

What was the reasoning for the original license change text? I'm not referring to the revised 'revoke at any time'. stub.

What was the reasoning for Smite Works adding the following text:



Permission is automatically revoked for freely available content, if an official release of that content is made available on the Fantasy Grounds store


It does not matter that you 'removed it' as we both know everything that this line explicitly states, can still be done with the clause of 'for any reason' which is more vaguely worded. I need an explanation as to why SmiteWorks choose to single out free contributions, as this was your original intention prior to this whole debacle.

That is the only answer I want.

[Moon Wizard]

The code we create is privately owned; that has never changed in the 10 year history we have owned the company. Any code that is made available online is still protected by copyright to the original author. That author can choose how they want the code to be used (such as we do), or provide some sort of alternate licensing model (such as you did). The statement we posted was just to create a single place to see the statements we had made in both e-mail and forums as to the allowed usage of our code, which is the right of any copyright holder. With community developers applying other licensing to code that was built on top of our code, the clarification seemed appropriate and relevant for all original code that was created by SmiteWorks or by developers who are under a work-for-hire agreement with SmiteWorks.

Our rights remain the same both before and after the clarification. As Doug has mentioned, we always reserve the right to do what is right for our business in the long term.

Regards,
JPG

[Ken L]

With community developers applying other licensing to code that was built on top of our code, the clarification seemed appropriate and relevant for all original code that was created by SmiteWorks or by developers who are under a work-for-hire agreement with SmiteWorks.

You dodged the question again. The text explicitly states that you’d only ‘care’ about this once you want to enforce non-compete when a similar ruleset is implemented officially. You’re right, it’s your private code, you can do whatever the heck you want to it.

You also on the other hand encourage your 'community' to make and share derivatives based on your code to spread FG's game system access, only to shut them out if they don’t want one of your ‘work for hire’ agreements when an official release is on the horizon. Getting rid of free alternatives that were previously encouraged is Microsoft territory.

Other licenses refer to the modifications done by other authors excluding the base, they can license it however they please, but the base code remains under your ownership license. The addition was a threat.. no automatic reservation to yank the derivative permission when you have something official brewing. Co-existance was not even considered. The revised text only softens the words, but the intent was made known already, with no “community” protections or assurances.

Assimilate, or get lost is what you’re saying, when an official ‘store’ variant comes along.

I’ve got all I need to know now.

[damned]

If I were to judge someone by their actions -

There is a commercial Traveller ruleset in the Store as well as two free community rulesets on the forums.
None have been removed or been requested to remove.
MoreCore also has the traveller rolls and dice.
There has been no request to remove these.

To the very best of my knowledge this is the only commercial ruleset that also has a community ruleset. The situation just does not happen with any degree of regularity.

From my perspective - the issue is so uncommon as to be almost hypothetical - and the one time it has happened - what you are concerned about happening did not happen.

So Im inclined to take things at face value.
We can use SmiteWorks code on Fantasy Grounds rulesets. They reserve the right to remove that permission.
I can live with that arrangement at this time.

[esmdev]

Yawn, Ken, I don't mean to be a jerk about this but seriously, we get it.

No, you or I have no right to community protection. Never did, never will. The minute a license is signed the owner of said property can simply say shut that down and that is that. Take the early pre-license Unearthed Arcana as an example.

On the other hand, if they don't say that it is pretty clear that Smiteworks is cool with whatever, so it seems to me that your just being unnecessarily sensitive.

Yes, it would suck to have Smiteworks say, sorry I realise you put hundreds or thousands of hours into development of extensions and rulesets but you can no longer share them... but basically you just did that to yourself without any actual evidence it would ever happen. So who is really the problem here?

[MadBeardMan]

If I were to judge someone by their actions -

There is a commercial Traveller ruleset in the Store as well as two free community rulesets on the forums.
None have been removed or been requested to remove.
MoreCore also has the traveller rolls and dice.
There has been no request to remove these.

To the very best of my knowledge this is the only commercial ruleset that also has a community ruleset. The situation just does not happen with any degree of regularity.

From my perspective - the issue is so uncommon as to be almost hypothetical - and the one time it has happened - what you are concerned about happening did not happen.

So Im inclined to take things at face value.
We can use SmiteWorks code on Fantasy Grounds rulesets. They reserve the right to remove that permission.
I can live with that arrangement at this time.

Agreed.