I'm a newcomer to the wesnoth project, so I'm not gonna slam my fist on the table or anything, just offer some thoughts. My opinion has swung back and forth, but overall I'm very favorable to Wesnoth making money with the iPhone port, provided the users' rights are respected. Unfortunately, given Apple's attitude, I'm not sure the latter is possible.
I think all or most of us (including Rusty who made non-trivial contributions), when they contribute to a GPL'd game, do it hoping the game stays true to the Free Software Definition<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>, of which the GPL is so to speak the legal arm. I think we should approach the problem from this perspective, rather than dissecting the GPL to see what its gray areas may or may not allow. Going back to basics, this means the *users* must have the famous 4 freedoms (quoting the FLOSS definition): - The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0) There may be a problem in this area, see below. - The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. We give access to the source code, including for the iPhone port<http://wesnoth.repositoryhosting.com/trac/wesnoth_wesnoth/> . - The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). This area is the most problematic, see below. - The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. Again, since we give access to the source code people are free to do this. Regarding freedom 2, I'm uncomfortable with the current situation. There is no hint, anywhere on the wesnoth app store page<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battle-for-wesnoth/id340691963?mt=8>, that you can obtain and distribute freely (or sell) a free copy of the iPhone app. The only related mention is the easy-to-miss-in-all-the-text sentence: "To find out more about the game or to play the *PC/Mac* version for free, please visit http://www.wesnoth.org";. Source code distribution is obviously not enough to ensure this freedom, since most people don't have the knowledge necessary to compile a binary themselves. Furthermore there's the issue of the app store license prohibiting people from distributing the binary they just bought. I believe this can be made a moot point by providing an alternate location where people can download the same binary for free, with the right to distribute it, and *clearly and conspicuously* indicating this on the app store page. Who cares if the license says you can't redistribute it, if right next to the download link it says in big bold letter "yes you legally can copy and redistribute it, here's the download link". However this is where having freedom 0 i.e. running the software, is problematic: once you have your nice iPhone binary of Wesnoth that someone used freedom 2 to redistribute to you, what you do with it? I think Apple has the right to pile up technical restrictions to installing software on the iPhone, it probably contributes to making it a crap-free environment that attracts many users. The problem is that it also believes jailbreaking to be illegal<http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking-illegal>, and will do everything in its power to make sure it is. If we are honest in wanting to give this freedom to users, I can think of a few ways: 1- Dunno if this is possible, since I don't really know how the app store works: Provided users have already bought the game (free software doesn't mean you can't sell it), allow them to download it free of charge on *any* iPhone they log in from, thus enabling them to redistribute to their friends. 2- Set up a secondary page where you can buy wesnoth for the minimum allowed price on the app store, which hopefully is under a dollar - so, a symbolic fee. People can redistribute to others a working version of wesnoth by pointing them to this link. 3- Set up a page with complete instructions for jailbreaking your phone and installing the binary of Wesnoth on it. It's an "in-your-face" approach that may work, since the crunchy fruit company's best interest is to shut up and keep making money from the sales. If Apple makes us shut the page down and the app store page goes down with it, at least them not us will take the blame of taking wesnoth away from iPhone users after teasing them with it. Overall I understand very well why Rusty doesn't like the idea of Wesnoth associating with an entity that will do everything it can to restrict users from exercising two of the aforementioned freedoms, with financial gain very high among its motivations to do so. Now I guess we can also take a more pragmatic view, i.e. the iPhone exists and has these restrictions, but it would be nice to give access to Wesnoth to its users regardless. Maybe two freedoms and a half on four is better than not having the software at all? Also since wesnoth is cross-platform, I'm not sure that not having the power to fully tinker with the software on a closed device is *that* annoying, since you can do it with an identical copy on so many other platforms. Yes in an ideal world the closed aspect of those devices would never be enforced legally, but as several people said using Wesnoth at the forefront of this battle may hurt it. (And/Or may move the battle forward because of its high visibility. So this may be a lost opportunity. Who knows.) On the other hand both these arguments can be reversed: given that Wesnoth is freely available on so many platforms, is it really necessary to compromise our ideals to allow it to run on the device(s) of a freedom-hating company? Especially with Android around the corner, with which we could give the same thing to our users without compromise? Regarding the money aspect, it can easily become the sirens' lure and the solve-all excuse. Rusty is right in pointing out we don't even have a donation button! Given the visibility of Wesnoth, I think the project could make gobs of money by setting one up and doing fundraising campaigns. Just consider the following facts: - The recent pay-what-you want Humble Indie Bundle made above a million dollars. - The sole, full time developer of the obscure but cool Dwarf Fortress manages to live on voluntary donations, the sum of said donations even reaching 10 000 dollars for the month after the recent major release. Donations and even selling wesnoth side-by-side with the free download would certainly provide sufficient funding for the scholarships we're doing now, and maybe even enough to pay part-time developers. So we need to realize that the iPhone port is not the only nor the most lucrative option. Conclusion: - The sticking point for me is that we should make extremely conspicuous on the app store page that wesnoth is 'libre' software, and that the resources to exert (at least a part of) their rights as free software users are just one click away. - We should apply every workaround we can to the current situation, to empower users with the four freedoms they're supposed to have regarding the iPhone version of Wesnoth. - If after doing that any developer that has his/her code in Wesnoth still objects to the iPhone port because of the aforementioned loss of freedom for the users, I think we should seriously reconsider our course of action and look for other, less ambiguous monetary avenues. - People don't assign copyright to Dave or to some legal entity when they contribute to wesnoth. Fooling around with their copyrighted code in the grey zones of the GPL is ill-advised from a legal point of view, and downright disrespectful if they are openly opposed to it. Therefore we should treat them with respect (for a counter-example, look at Patrick's intervention above), and take out or rewrite appropriate parts of the code if we can't come to an agreement. Gabriel a.k.a. gabba
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