Below I've listed the libraries that I can think of as released, who wrote them and under what licence they're distributed as.

Currently I can only see two with a bit of a hitch, and that's sdether's lfsLib.NET and T-RonX's LFS External.

lfsLib.NET because it's under the GPL 2 it means that any code that uses it must also be licenced under the same terms (GPL 2) (unless the applications talk at an arm's length. Sadly you can't consider a dynamic linking to a DLL as enough - hence why the LGPL exists). Currently I can think of at least one application, off the top of my head, that's been publically released and may not be complying (the source isn't publically available, but that doesn't mean it may not be available on request).

LFS External is interesting because it's not got a licence at all, as far as I can tell. Either I've missed it, which is entirely possible, or there just isn't one. This technically means that the code is copyright to T-RonX and maybe a bit of a grey area for users of the code.

I totally believe that if you're putting the code on a public forum, then you're expecting the code to be used, but given the hoooah with LFSLapper, perhaps it's time to have a think-sie?

Again, sorry if I'm treading on toes or causing trouble, but I thought it might be worth bringing up premptively. I've added some info to the FAQ regarding licencing, which some of you may find useful.

I'm using lfsLib.NET for my PenaltyReset application that I released last week. Could someone please summarise what I need to do to conform to the GPL 2 license?

Do I need to release the source with the binaries, or can I just give them out on request?

It would need to be licenced under the GPL, or a compatible licence (I'm slightly hazy on this front, sorry ), and the source needs to be made available in some form. That is unless the licencing is changed

I use the MIT license because I want the LFSWorldSDK to be used by anyone, for anything as long as it helps make Live For Speed stronger then that's fine by me. That's the beauty of the license conditions. You don't even have to release your code if you use my code, making the best choice for website SDKs. How ever, if I were to do a InSim project with PHP for example I would consider releasing it under MIT, or GPL [That I know quite well from my AMX Mod days], not sure at this point what one I would go for both have their perks.

Personally I'm all in favour of non copy-left licences (i.e. "copy centre"/BSD/MIT style licences). I don't think they're any free-er than a proprietory licence, as they force a user of that code to release their code, which they may not want, which then forces them to either use another library, which may not be as capable or they need to rewrite the same functionality.

In the case of libraries I think it's just plain wrong to release them under the GPL. Of course, it's the developers perrogative, naturally

mhh, i wouldn't say it's wrong to release under GPL, i think it's more a special descision. with a good lib for insim under GPL you can make the best you can, that the results from using this lib coming back to the community, because apps need to be released with source code. so why should someone who benefits from the community (by using an existing lib) not want to give the sources away. i know there are a lot coders, who wouldn't use such a lib, but i can't understand it. i see it as the best way for community to profit from projects like LFSLib.Net

I have been programming my own stuff and I don't really want to release it mainly because its part of something much bigger then just Live for Speed applications. However thats not my purpose for writing as I do agree with the whole force others to give their source code idea; this is the first I read about that and it seemed interesting. The real reason I was writing however is for those new programmers that wish to develop InSim applications will probably be browsing through here eventually - do you think it would be worth mentioning which programming language those libraries were made for?

oh, by the way, about the GPL: You in fact have to deliver the FULL source code of your application. That is, if you give your application away at all. If you only use your application on your own server and do not give it away, you are not forced to give away the sourcecode.

perhaps it is a good idea to not only name the licences for the different libs, but rather link the licence texts itself, so everbody can read all the stuff by himself.

for GPL 2 the following links:
- German: http://www.gnu.de/documents/gpl-2.0.de.html
- English: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

Quote from the_angry_angel :

I totally believe that if you're putting the code on a public forum, then you're expecting the code to be used, but given the hoooah with LFSLapper, perhaps it's time to have a think-sie?

Being involved with the lapper incident, I 100% agree with you but licenses are only any good if they are worth enough to legally fight over.

In the lapper case, no one was at fault, it was just a mis-understanding but as it started to get rather serious i took top legal advice.

My expert made the point that if 500 developers using C# did an app to say "hello world", 90% would be the same, so who owns the code.

His answer in my case was to say that 99.99% of cases the license is worthless as the cost of fighting any action would be so high that it would be stupid to fight it. Now you may say that the person in the wrong may have to pay the others costs, however its more than likely that this would not be the case as courts these days hate people taking action where cost outweight the possible gain.

Even though the outcome could be anything, it is quite likely that should i lose such an action the other side could only claim compensation for their loss and as i do not charge for my servers and the software has been written for nothing, this could be tiny.

Another point my expert came up with is when 2 pieces of code are linked or merged together such as Lapper and my License / Skill League application and

one is Copyright to one developer
the other is under a GNU / GPL

I am told they do not both revert to a GNU and this is yet a whole new can of worms.

My expert also said that anyone who puts out software under a GNU is basically giving away their rights with no comeback whatsoever as if it had a real value is would stay secret.

So i pose the question, what use is a license anyway in such a small community when the loss to fight it can be huge and any gain tiny?

i have been experimenting with lfs external and gonna make an insim program to do with drifting, does this mean I will need to publicise the source code? could i just get away with crediting t-ronx for making this fabulous library?

Quote from birder :

So i pose the question, what use is a license anyway in such a small community when the loss to fight it can be huge and any gain tiny?

that's the point i can not understand (as a programmer). the case that the rights should be fighted by law should normally not happen. so if i use a piece of code from the lfs-community which is under GPL, why should i have a problem with giving away the sources? this will prevent perhaps a lot of coders to reinvent the wheel. like your example with the "hello world"-app: of course if you wanna code some propritary app perhaps for money, then i know, that i can't use for example lfslib. i could write the comm via insim/outsim/outgage by myself, but the code will be perhaps 80% the same like lfslib. so if it would be such a special project then i have to do it by my own. OR i use lfslib under GPL giving out my source too and everybody can take a look, can do improvements and perhaps save a lot of time, because things are done and are reusable. and with the GPL my piece of code is always my piece of code, the copyright will stay by me, the only thing the licence handles is, what others have to do, if they wanna use my code.
that's my 2 cents to that

Quote from haelje :

that's the point i can not understand (as a programmer). the case that the rights should be fighted by law should normally not happen. so if i use a piece of code from the lfs-community which is under GPL, why should i have a problem with giving away the sources? this will prevent perhaps a lot of coders to reinvent the wheel. like your example with the "hello world"-app: of course if you wanna code some propritary app perhaps for money, then i know, that i can't use for example lfslib. i could write the comm via insim/outsim/outgage by myself, but the code will be perhaps 80% the same like lfslib. so if it would be such a special project then i have to do it by my own. OR i use lfslib under GPL giving out my source too and everybody can take a look, can do improvements and perhaps save a lot of time, because things are done and are reusable. and with the GPL my piece of code is always my piece of code, the copyright will stay by me, the only thing the licence handles is, what others have to do, if they wanna use my code.
that's my 2 cents to that

One thing that did not come out in my post was how greatful our community including myself are for all you guys do. We are forever in you dept. Its great work and i thank you all from the community for that. Having libraries available keep projects coming often and easier to complete.

I thank you and thank you again.

However i ask you, how many developers dont have a quick look at other peoples code to see how something was done, or use snippets from somewhere else! Why re-invent the wheel.

In my eyes there is nothing wrong with that if the source is freely available but the use of a one line snippet of code thats under a GNU at the start of a project which cannot be programmed in a better way does not give the right of the whole project source code away.

Eg. If i wrote "Hello World" under GNU how can that ever give me the rights to every piece of code that contains it.

If we all had to thank everyone who helped us complete a project the list of books, website, people, mum , and and everyone who knows me would but huge and pointless

However on the other hand if someone takes a piece of source and changes one line it does not become thiers

So my point is haelje, at what point does any project become your own as the way a GNU tries to work is to say if you even look at the code you must give out your source, which i find rather over the top. There must be a point at which something becomes you own. "Hi International pals" is clearly not "Hello World" yet in a GNU it is but then who fight for it when there is no gain.

Once again i thanks you all.

Why I bring up the idea of the GPL is mainly due to how it worked in AMX Mod, where people would use AMX Mod to make plugins for Counter-Strike that could do some wonderful things for the game play. But seeing as AMX Mod itself was under the GPL even it's plugins had to be GPL'ed. This I see as a good thing, not only because I don't like running things on my server not knowing what kinda of code is going through the processor, (Yeah, kinda a control freak), that's also why I run linux, but it promoted better programming habbits having everyone look at your code and give you some pointers on how you could make that run just a tad faster. It also stops the whole security thought obscurity thing that Microsoft seems to be in love with, and we all see how well that works.

The GPL in the InSim area has it's place, and that place I fell would be with a community project the likes of AMX Mod, where if you want to use ISX Mod (InSimX Mod) then you know what your getting yourself into. You know the code for all of the plugins that are running, and you your self can see the core also.

Quote from Dygear :

I use the MIT license because I want the LFSWorldSDK to be used by anyone, for anything as long as it helps make Live For Speed stronger then that's fine by me. That's the beauty of the license conditions. You don't even have to release your code if you use my code, making the best choice for website SDKs.

In this case you are doing exactly what will happen in a small community, and accepting it.

I read that as you saying "here is my code, i hope it helps the community, please use it anyway you want" ," if you want my help just ask"

No threats, no bad feelings, no upset developers, no one stopping development, no court cases

Plain and simple.

Thats the way i see all LFS libraries should be and well done to you for doing it that way after all you all do it for fun anyway

Hats off to you mate

Can anyone englighten me as to the "lapper incident"...?

EDIT - I understand now.

Quote from Jakg :

Can anyone englighten me as to the "lapper incident"...?

It was on the lapper post in unoffical forum but it all got deleted..

Personally opinion (as much as I hate the FSF and really don't much care for the GPL) would be GPL (or compatible license) licensed because taht way anyone that wants to use it can. But it keeps people from taking something someone distributed to the community at large and making their own proprietary version of it and distributing that and not helping out the community.

And btw, even if you GPL (or similiar license) you *still* own the copyright unless you specifically give that away. So as the original author (assuming you are) you can re-license the code. So you could distribute it under GPL2 and GPL3 or Apache or MIT or all of them together or some commercial license.

birder, thank you.

How ever, in the case of a InSim demon / lib, I would go for a GPL style license if not the GPL itself, as I want anyone to be able to use the demon / lib, and I want the code to go back into the community. Just like what happened with AMX Mod. It's a case of different licenses for different situations.

I'm really not familiar with all the licenses out there. I need some help on this tbh. What should I do? What license do you advice for LFS External? I only read the GPL once. Thb i dont really care much about what ppl do with my code.

its up to you really T-RonX, if you don't care then I honestly wouldn't worry about it. If you do care, then it might be worth licencing in some way. The WTFPL or MIT licences springs to mind tbh, since they're both "do what you want"-type licences

If I make a few rules up myself, does that make a valid license?

Yeah, absolutely

one good licence if you don't care is the LGPL (Lesser-GPL) which also gives people the possibility to do propriatary things, but if they do changes to the LGPL library they have to post the sources. but you can use it in commercial product

That doesn't really fall under the "I don't care" category though.