License?

[SpacingBat3]

From this thread:

If you find software that doesn’t have a license, that generally means you have no permission from the creators of the software to use, modify, or share the software. Although a code host such as GitHub may allow you to view and fork the code, this does not imply that you are permitted to use, modify, or share the software for any purpose.
Your options:

• Ask the maintainers nicely to add a license. Unless the software includes strong indications to the contrary, lack of a license is probably an oversight. If the software is hosted on a site like GitHub, open an issue requesting a license and include a link to this site. If you’re bold and it’s fairly obvious what license is most appropriate, open a pull request to add a license – see “suggest this license” in the sidebar of the page for each license on this site (e.g., MIT).
• Don’t use the software. Find or create an alternative that is under an open source license.
• Negotiate a private license. Bring your lawyer.

The list of issues that also associated with the "no-license" problem:

• can i use your engine and clone? #81,
• Can I use it to my github page? #79,
• Can I post a modified version of the Bad Time Simulator? #73.

I hope this issue will be soon fixed and the project will be licensed. This is at the moment the biggest limitation to contributing in this project.

PS: As your project is based on the Construct 2, you should also provide their licensing note. From their documentation it seems the only real limitation of reusing this project is:

Not allowed to be used for commercial purposes (however, it can be used in education and other non-profit organisations).

[Jcw87]

When I was initially uploading the Construct 2 project, I spent some time trying to decide on a license, and couldn't find anything that I liked, so that's why there isn't one. My main concern is I don't want people re-hosting the project, resulting in a scenario where there are 500 different copies of it all around the internet, and nobody knows where to find the most up to date version. I tolerate copies that are sufficiently different from what I provide here, and anyone is free to borrow chunks of code from here for different projects. If someone wants to make a contribution, I will also consider those.

What license do you think would fit these requirements?

[SpacingBat3]

Well, you might need to write your own then... Of course, your license might be based on the other...
Just find the one that is the closest to your needs...

Do you want to only block people rehosting a website once it is unmodified, right? What about the <iframe>'s then – do you want to block them too (right now the policy of your website allows for doing these)?

My main concern is I don't want people re-hosting the project, resulting in a scenario where there are 500 different copies of it all around the internet, and nobody knows where to find the most up to date version

Personally, I've never met anyone trying to prevent that... There's thousands of the websites that collects and rehost the games.
Yet everyone knows where to search for the original...

BTW whould be OK then to make an Electron app for your website BTW? Those won't host by itself your website – I've made it to work like the normal Undertale fangame in form of the EXE file (well, I haven't compiled it for Windows yet, but I packaged it for Linux – Mac OS is supported too BTW)...

[ChaboCode]

Electron app doesn't seems to be a bad idea, the multiple versions would be .exe formats and the original can stand on the web. A license saying this can be useful.

[Jcw87]

Well, you might need to write your own then... Of course, your license might be based on the other...
Just find the one that is the closest to your needs...

I don't think it would be wise to write my own license without a lawyer.

Do you want to only block people rehosting a website once it is unmodified, right? What about the <iframe>'s then – do you want to block them too (right now the policy of your website allows for doing these)?

The game is hosted on github pages. I have no way of controlling the headers that the server sends back. In theory, <iframe> embedding is fine, so long as it is made clear where it comes from. I once had to take down a version that someone put on Kongregate because they were trying to make money off of it. I don't think I should be making money off of this, let alone someone else.

My main concern is I don't want people re-hosting the project, resulting in a scenario where there are 500 different copies of it all around the internet, and nobody knows where to find the most up to date version

Personally, I've never met anyone trying to prevent that... There's thousands of the websites that collects and rehost the games.
Yet everyone knows where to search for the original...

I've already had this happen to me once before. Some Chinese guy uploaded my game to his own github pages, and my copy practically vanished from google. People on reddit began posting links to his copy instead. It resulted in the only DMCA takedown I have ever issued.

BTW whould be OK then to make an Electron app for your website BTW? Those won't host by itself your website – I've made it to work like the normal Undertale fangame in form of the EXE file (well, I haven't compiled it for Windows yet, but I packaged it for Linux – Mac OS is supported too BTW)...

I'm undecided on this, but if I was going to allow it, I would rather use the NW.js exporter that Construct 2 has.

[Jisenku]

Wouldn't this sort of license be like an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike? (CC BY-NC-SA)

[SpacingBat3]

Wouldn't this sort of license be like an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike? (CC BY-NC-SA)

@BlueJYT Do you propose to license the software with the Creative Commons licese? Just read this:
https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/777/why-shouldnt-creative-commons-licenses-be-used-for-software

CC isn't meant to be used with software. Personally, I've never found any open source software that were licensed under the CC.

@Jcw87 why don't redistribute this project under the conditions of the Construct 2 Free License conditions (i.e. allowing the people to use this project in any purpose as long as it it won't break the Construct 2 Free License agreements)? This would definitely block the people to use this project commercially – I suppose the most people that are rehosting your website are doing that for such thing (of course I'm thinking about the malicious rehostings, when the people want to make money on someone's costs).

I believe if you're searching for any license that would match your criteria and would be compatible with the Construct 2 Free License conditions, you don't have too much choice. I believe the easiest approach of having the ideal license would be doing a slight modification to the MIT License – I'm still sure if you do it by yourself, your license wouldn't be as bad as this "license" 😉️ (BTW this is an license of the official Minecraft Pi Edition – if you don't believe me, you can check it on the official minecraft website). Anyway that's your project, so that's your decision about the licensing.

Maybe that's not fixing the issue, but ever thought about making a credits menu in your game? I believe this would make the people more informed who made the game (so no one would be confused about where is the original game hosted) – right now no one can find that unless he will find that repo.

I'm undecided on this, but if I was going to allow it, I would rather use the NW.js exporter that Construct 2 has.

Is this sollution supporting the Linux ARM? Right now Electron does and... that's the actually platform I were compiling for at first.
I've also haven't mentioned that I did some tweaks to the sound files and I've changed the music – but the code itself stayed untouched.

[Jcw87]

@Jcw87 why don't redistribute this project under the conditions of the Construct 2 Free License conditions (i.e. allowing the people to use this project in any purpose as long as it it won't break the Construct 2 Free License agreements)? This would definitely block the people to use this project commercially – I suppose the most people that are rehosting your website are doing that for such thing (of course I'm thinking about the malicious rehostings, when the people want to make money on someone's costs).

I believe if you're searching for any license that would match your criteria and would be compatible with the Construct 2 Free License conditions, you don't have too much choice. I believe the easiest approach of having the ideal license would be doing a slight modification to the MIT License – I'm still sure if you do it by yourself, your license wouldn't be as bad as this "license" 😉️ (BTW this is an license of the official Minecraft Pi Edition – if you don't believe me, you can check it on the official minecraft website). Anyway that's your project, so that's your decision about the licensing.

I'm pretty sure that the The Construct 2 licenses are between the users of the Construct 2 software and Scirra, and are of little relevance for games created with the software (with the exception of commercial use of course). Here's a sentence from their licensing page:

You own all the rights to any content you generate in Construct 2.

Even if this wasn't the case, the Free Edition license is completely non-applicable as I have a Personal license, and this project is well above the 100 event limit of the Free Edition.

Maybe that's not fixing the issue, but ever thought about making a credits menu in your game? I believe this would make the people more informed who made the game (so no one would be confused about where is the original game hosted) – right now no one can find that unless he will find that repo.

This might be worth doing.

I'm undecided on this, but if I was going to allow it, I would rather use the NW.js exporter that Construct 2 has.

Is this sollution supporting the Linux ARM? Right now Electron does and... that's the actually platform I were compiling for at first.

The NW.js exporter only supports x86 Windows, Mac, and Linux. I would rather use it as a matter of convenience, but alternative exports aren't completely off the table. Most people who would be using ARM Linux are probably smart enough to figure out how to slap it on to an Apache server, so it isn't really a big concern for me. ARM Mac isn't a concern either, as I don't like how Apple conducts business and I'm not going to go out of my way to support their platforms.

[Jisenku]

@BlueJYT Do you propose to license the software with the Creative Commons licese? Just read this:
https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/777/why-shouldnt-creative-commons-licenses-be-used-for-software

CC isn't meant to be used with software. Personally, I've never found any open source software that were licensed under the CC.

Of course, that's why I said LIKE that license because CC can't really be used for code.

[SpacingBat3]

Of course, that's why I said LIKE that license because CC can't really be used for code.

@BlueJYT Still, there's no too much licenses like that for the open source software.

@Jcw87 The only license that comes to my mind would be the AGPL license, as it would require for everyone rehosting your website publically to publish their sources (or at least point to yours if it is unmodified, I think?).

Just to notice even the MIT license (that is known to be the most liberal open source license) would require the others to republish your website with the proper copyright notice – without that, this would be a stealing someone's job. So I believe all of the licenses (excluding the Unlicense license) protects your work from being stolen – as no one can copyright your code or declare that it is his/her, so it must be clearly said who is the original author of the website/code.

I've also searched for the open source licenses and I couldn't personally find any of that, which could fit exactly in your requirements – especially for being both non-commercial and open source... I don't think anyway that someone would use your project to be commercial anyway with its original form, as it uses the music/sounds/sprites that are present in the Undertale. The Construct 2 is pretty limiting that, too. I believe that it wouldn't be worth it, as it would require someone to:

• buy a Construct 2 Personal/Business License;
• make their game to be a good concurrence for your free website;
• not to make money on the ADs, because it might not give too much earnings (and those are needed to make the game pay for itself).

I don't think I have any other idea for the other licenses. I believe that almost any open source license protects your code from being stolen, so there won't be any situation as such:

I've already had this happen to me once before. Some Chinese guy uploaded my game to his own github pages, and my copy practically vanished from google. People on reddit began posting links to his copy instead. It resulted in the only DMCA takedown I have ever issued.

[SpacingBat3]

@SpacingBat3 closed this now

Whoops, miss click! Obviously it is still an issue...

[CrimsonFork]

and my copy practically vanished from google.

To be fair, your name probably doesn't do your game any favors regarding Search Engine Optimization.

[iKNIFEu]

Welp, #96 is a new one buds.

[iMplode-nZ]

I would really like some license which allows me to modify and publish this (I want to be able to redirect to webpage, then redirect back after executing a single attack); GPL v3.0 is generally a pretty good license to prevent people from taking advantage of open source stuff.

[iMplode-nZ]

Also having some other name would really help with making sure the official one stays on top

[hackermare]

The best license for web projects is AGPL 3.0, since it's the only license that states that network use is distribution.

[hackermare]

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html

[SpacingBat3]

@Jcw87 Since I've see myself as a bit more mature developer than I was before, I would like to share my thoughts as of nowadays:

My main concern is I don't want people re-hosting the project (...)

What I believe you don't want your project to be free, but still open source. What I considered previously were free software licenses, which gives all freedoms like sharing the software and distributing it, even commercially. And even the *GPL licenses are giving the users these freedoms, although it enforces the other developers to not close-source their work. They can however rehost your page, if it is itself unmodified from what you've made (and they don't need to provide the source alongside the application).

Just to say, do not look at typical open source licenses, try to search for those which are non-free, yet allowing for the source code reshare.

I'm undecided on this, but if I was going to allow it, I would rather use the NW.js exporter that Construct 2 has.

Unless your app is not going to use any remote content, that would be a terrible move. Electron by itself is a bit more permissive nowadays, it has a proper sandbox and process isolation for remote websites, trying to eliminate the risk of RCE to occur. However it is resource-hungry, so that wouldn't be the best choice as well. If you would ever consider doing something like that (which I don't thing is really a need to do so), you probably would want something what Neutralinojs wants to be.

Most people who would be using ARM Linux are probably smart enough (...)

I have doubts when I meet people buying the Raspberry Pi yet having no idea neither being prepared what Linux actually is.

(@Jisenku)

CC isn't meant to be used with software. Personally, I've never found any open source software that were licensed under the CC.

Actually, I think it could be used (and even some software uses it), yet be aware your software won't be qualified as FOSS.