Mihai Moldovan <[email protected]> writes: > * On 11/11/25 23:21, computermouth wrote: >> 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. > > The short answer is that this won't be good enough. > > Even data in non-free must be freely redistributable, including > non-discrimination of endeavor.
I do not think that is true. There are things in non-free that discriminate on endeavor. For example, here is something that can not be use commercially. https://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs//non-free/m/mame-extra/mame-extra_0.250-1_copyright The only real condition for non-free is that Debian can distribute it on their mirrors. So a license that prevents mirrors from hosting competitors would be a problem. The problem here is the exact wording of the exception. There is an important general exception: if you're compiling a Make and Play version of the game, then you can you freely distribute the game's assets. The term 'Make and Play' is a bit fuzzy to me. Does that mean you can only distribute it with those exact assets? If we got some clarity on exactly what that means, then it might work for Debian. For posterity, I am including the licenses below. Cheers, Walter Landry ================== VVVVVV's source code is made available under a custom license. Basically, you can compile yourself a copy, for free, for personal use. But if you want to distribute a compiled version of the game, you might need permission first. See the License exceptions page for more information. VVVVVV Source Code License v1.0 Last updated on January 7th, 2020. This repo contains the source code for VVVVVV, including all level content and text from the game. It does not, however, contain any of the icons, art, graphics or music for the game, which are still under a proprietary license. For personal use, you can find these assets for free in the Make and Play Edition. If you are interested in distributing work that falls outside the terms in the licence below, or if you are interested in distributing work that includes using any part of VVVVVV not included in this repo then please get in touch - we can discuss granting a licence for that on a case by case basis. The purpose of making the contents of this repo available is for others to learn from, to inspire new work, and to allow the creation of new tools and modifications for VVVVVV. This software available from here is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any claim, damages or other liability arising from the use or in connection with this software. All materials in the repo, with the exception of the contents of the "third_party" directory, are copyright of Terry Cavanagh © 2010-2020. Permission is granted to anyone to use this software and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions: You may not alter or redistribute this software in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. This includes, but is not limited to, selling altered or unaltered versions of this software, or including advertisements of any kind in altered or unaltered versions of this software. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, you are required to include an acknowledgement in the product that this software is the copyright of Terry Cavanagh and is based on the VVVVVV source code. Altered source/binary versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software. You must not distribute any materials from the game which are not included in this repo unless approved by us in writing. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source/binary distribution. ---------------- VVVVVV's source code is made available under a custom license, which states that you must not distribute any materials from the game (i.e. the game's assets) which are not included in this repo unless approved by us in writing. In general, if you're interested in creating something that falls outside the license terms, get in touch with Terry! There is an important general exception: if you're compiling a Make and Play version of the game, then you can you freely distribute the game's assets. The following is a list of projects which have been given permission by Terry to distribute the assets with distributions of the game, and under what conditions. Exceptions granted to the VVVVVV source code license
