AGPL or LGPL for my MMO add-on?

[PeterX]

Hello fellow developers!

I want to develop a kind of add-on for MMO games. It will contain a server-side library and a client.

Should I use the AGPL or the LGPL?
(a) LGPL advantage: Supports Non-AGPL-games (MIT license, BSD license, GPL etc.)
(b) AGPL advantage: A proprietary game can't extend my code without sharing the additional code.

Greetings
Peter

[dulsi]

The two pieces (server-side and client) don't need to be licensed the same. Are you creating an MMO? Or do you simply intend to make this add-on and other games adopt it? Or both?

If your goal is the first, either license works.

For the second option, I would approach specific games and try to get it adopted. You may need to code this up yourself and they may reject the addition. The license really depends on what the other projects accept. That may not be LGPL or AGPL. In which case you need to decide if you want to hold firm and find another game project or not.

If you are going for both, you can either lobby specific games in which case you will need to pick a license that game project agrees with. Or you can make your game and not worry if others use it. In which case either license works.

[PeterX]

I want to write an add-on, a rather big one but not a complete MMO game. And I want it to be used by many free software projects. I don't want it to be used in proprietary games. It is more important for me that it can be used in many free MMOs than that it is not used in unfree games.

So I think I need a license which can co-exist with many free licenses. So AGPL is not the right thing.

And I think a proprietary game can use and modify GPL or LGPL (or whatever except AGPL) because running the code on a server doesn't count as distribution! So I can as well use a rather permissive license, be it LGPL, MIT, BSD (maybe even CC0?)

Greetings
Peter

[jachosbi]

I had experience working with dev service which renders was met far and beyond my expectations. It wasn't an easy project and the attention to detail was excellent.

[PeterX]

1.) Wow, this sounds like a bot

2.) I dropped the idea of an add-on. I will instead integrate this into my mini MMORPG.

[Jastiv]

GPL is more than sufficient for any client.
I know people are going to disagree with me, but I see AGPL as essential for the server. This is because it tends to be run "server side" and then the server side devs like to hide it, or rather, not bother to put up the source code for it. Whenever they get tired of running the server, then their modifications cease to work. Also, server admins kinda can get competitive with each other or think like "you are taking my players away, I have better mods than you etc etc."
I think people just don't like to use AGPL, because they think it will be too much work to put up a link to the source code for the server somewhere. How the heck is that too hard for server admins if they can spend their time making mods to customize the server. I've even seen this with "free software" games like Minetest, in fact it is a common complaint on the Minetest forums. We should quit being afraid of the AGPL and use it to make server admins finally learn to co-operate.

[PeterX]

Yes, my server code will be AGPL. If AGPL doesn't allow proprietary data, I will write an exception into the license. And my data (art) will be free, too, probably the CC sharealike license.

[DrAltaica]

The two political camps in the free software community are the free software movement and open source. The free software movement is a campaign for computer users' freedom; we say that a nonfree program is an injustice to its users. The open source camp declines to see the issue as a matter of justice to the users, and bases its arguments on practical benefits only.

To emphasize that “free software” refers to freedom and not to price, we sometimes write or say “free (libre) software,” adding the French or Spanish word that means free in the sense of freedom. In some contexts, it works to use just “libre software.”

So the question that needs to be asked is "Why do I want your non free software used in many free software projects?"

You ob(l)viously think that the Free software movement is a good thing to support but you're question if you should join it or just give it the same support you give priority software organizations.

I want to write an add-on, a rather big one but not a complete MMO game. And I want it to be used by many free software projects. I don't want it to be used in proprietary games. It is more important for me that it can be used in many free MMOs than that it is not used in unfree games.

If all you care about is if the code you write in used in Free software then just CC-0 it.

If you want contributions others make to your code be used by free software projects then AGPL it.

You're afraid that people will not be able to use it if it's AGPL but is it's not AGPL then they won't be able to use it because it will be kept secret.

The only reason not to use the AGPL is if you want to include non compatible code in your project.

[PeterX]

@DrAltaica You make some interesting points. I think CC0 is not the right license for me. AGPL is the way to go for me.

I tend a little bit more to the libre camp than to the open source camp. This is "moving", I mean my attitude is slowly changing. Among other reasons it is because I see that proprietary software does some bad things. So Stallman's claim "proprietary software is malware" sounds exaggerating but is actually true.

Also I want to code my add-on no longer separated from my main game. Just a (nearly) minimal game.

Greetings
Peter

[bzt]

I don't want it to be used in proprietary games.

That rules out LGPL, because the purpose of "lesser" is to allow embedding in proprietary software.

The two political camps in the free software community are the free software movement and open source.

This is a very common misconception.

Open Source has nothing to do with freedom, and it's not a synonym of Free, forget that ASAP. That's why FOSS is called Free and Open Source Software (note, both properties listed and for a good reason). Just because you have access to a source doesn't mean you can legally do anything with it. For example, a company might publish parts of a proprietary software as Open Source for a bug bounty program, but that doesn't make that source Free in any way, you're not allowed to distribute, modify or compile it yourself, just study it to find bugs.

Another example: Windows XP is Open Source (the source is openly and publicly available), but it isn't free (you're not allowed to even take a look at it, not to mention other software freedoms).

Cheers,
bzt

[PeterX]

Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code.

https://opensource.org/osd

[bzt]

Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code.

https://opensource.org/osd

That's their definition, and only one of the many. For example Merriam-Webster, Economic Times and NIST etc. (just a few examples I've found with a quick search) defines it differently, most notably they say "may be" or "possible" for modification and distribution. Sadly the term "open source" isn't a technical term per se, and those definitions disagree on the right that comes with it. Conclusion is what those different definitions have in common is the source's availability, nothing else. It is the license which accompanies the software that makes the modification and redistribution rights clear, and not the "open sourceness" in general.

Cheers,
bzt