On 5/15/05, Matthijs Kooijman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I am making Debian packages of openttd and am thinking of getting them > uploaded into Debian. Though it is licensed under GPL, I was wondering in what > section it belongs. > There are two reasons for this. > > First, openttd is non-working on itself, it needs the user to supply it with > data files from the original ttd game (sounds and graphics). > Secondly, I am not entirely sure where openttd originated from. I believe it > was based on a disassembly or decompile of the original ttd game. I am not > entirely sure how this holds up under, for example, US copyright law. The > initial version of openttd was created in Finland, where this is supposed to > be perfectly legal.
The requirement for content from the original game means that it should probably go in contrib. I wouldn't worry too much about the inspirations and motivations behind the implementation. In general, the gaming industry rather routinely borrows concepts and techniques from each other. From their point of view, this is probably a legitimate implementation. Of course, if you have any serious doubts about that you can contact the original game's publisher and ask them. Since, at least currently, you have to have a legal copy of the game to play openttd legally, they're not likely to object. Also, unless openttd includes design features which are clearly unique content, the original publishers probably won't have any legal grounds to object. [But you're not really described the situation enough to know if that could be an issue.] I wouldn't worry too much about the intent of the programs' requirement for game content constituting a GPL violation. From what you say, it's pretty clear that the copyright holders on the GPL content intend for it to be used this way -- they appear to think that the game content is not a part of the program. However, if you have any serious doubts, you should cntact the authors of openttdc and get clarification from them. In other words, the core of openttd has roughly the same status as documentation on the inner workings of the original game. But it's clearly been fleshed out quite a bit from that, with the intent of actually running against the original game data. So it's probably correct to put the game in contrib. But I'm just going from your brief writeup here, I've not attempted to figure out if there are any serious creative content issues that you've not described. If you have any doubts about those, I'd recommend you contact the people who would have copyrights on that content. Good luck, -- Raul
