Howdy legal folks, I'd like to get someone to review the 'LICENSE.md' and 'License exceptions.md' files linked below, to see what can be done to package the proprietary game 'VVVVVV'.
I contacted the author to see if they would be open to changing the license to something like CC-BY-SA. They said the best they could do at this time is to add Debian to the list of exceptions granted by the file linked below. Lee Garrett responded to my email to the Games team with some concerns. I'd just like to see if these are indeed a show-stopper. Thanks, -- Ben https://github.com/TerryCavanagh/VVVVVV/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/TerryCavanagh/VVVVVV/blob/master/License%20exceptions.md ------- Forwarded Message ------- From: Lee Garrett <[email protected]> Date: On Tuesday, November 11th, 2025 at 3:12 PM Subject: Re: VVVVVV - Seeking Sponsorship To: computermouth <[email protected]> > Hi Ben, > > On 08/11/2025 21:43, computermouth wrote: > > > Howdy folks, > > > > My name is Ben, I maintain #!++ (CrunchBangPlusPlus) > > https://crunchbangplusplus.org. > > > > While I'm used to mostly packaging dotfiles and shell scripts, I've gotten > > the approval of the author of VVVVVV to package the full game as a > > non-free. I'd previously corresponded with folks on the Debian Mentors list. > > > > Now I'm looking for a sponsor. I've got a VVVVVV package building, though > > it's not quite ready yet. I'm still working on packaging 2 of the > > dependencies which aren't currently available in the Debian repos. > > > I've had a quick look at the license, and it seems from my layman's point of > view that this game is not distributable in non-free. So I recommend you ask > debian-legal about that first before putting any more packaging work into it. > > The issues I see are that: > 1) The license is granted to Debian, making it problematic for downstream > distros (Ubuntu, Crunchbang, etc) to distribute the compiled package. > 2) The license is disallows "redistribut[ing] this software in any manner that > is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private > monetary compensation". Since a lot of Debian mirrors are run by for-profit > enterprises, this makes a non-free mirror a legal risk. > > So at a minimum the compiled packages would need to be freely redistributable. > Since you need to buy the game to be able to play it, I think that's something > the author could change if they want the game packaged in Debian. > > > I do have some Salsa repos started: > > > > VVVVVV: https://salsa.debian.org/computermouth/vvvvvv > > c-hashmap: https://salsa.debian.org/computermouth/c-hashmap > > > > Progress is moving along. I think my c-hashmap library is good to go. > > VVVVVV still has one more dependency I'd need to package. I'm looking for > > someone to review and sponsor these packages. > > > > Thanks, > > > > -- Ben > > > Greets, > Lee
