Licenses
The imminent danger of a lawsuit.
- Martin
- 4 min read
Licenses
You want to avoid (at least I do) hassle afterwards because you accidentally or otherwise use software that you are not allowed to use commercially. That is why I have mainly used the MIT license for engine3 and Signal From The Stars from the start.
To keep it short, the following licenses are safe to use for commercial use: MIT, zlib, BSD, Apache, Unlicense, ISC License. It is important that you keep the original copyright and license text of the source and also provide it in the final product.
I am already collecting all licenses of code that I use from third parties, and place this next to the code and sometimes even in the code. There will also be a general file in which I will merge everything that has been used where.
If you use GPL, and you want to release the product commercially, you are expected to make the software open source.
If you search for which ones you should not/never use, you will find:
- GNU General Public License (GPL, all versions)
- Affero General Public License (AGPL)
- Creative Commons Non-Commercial Licenses (CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA, etc.)
- Creative Commons ShareAlike Licenses (CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC-SA, etc.)
- Sleepycat License
- Open Software License (OSL)
- Server Side Public License (SSPL)
Assets
Where you might have thought in the past:
Hey, that’s a nice image, I’m going to use it for my product!
That’s an absolute no-go, not only will you quickly get a lawyer’s letter or you want to pay for using the image. It’s also not original and you’re harming the person who made the image.
Since I can’t draw, I’ll pay others to make the images based on my input.
This actually applies to all assets such as audio but also fonts.
The game
Well, this is going to be a paid game because I am trying to get my expenses back at least. Engine3 may become open source someday. You used to see those software installations where you had to read many pages of text and then agree before the software was installed.
Unfortunately, this is not for nothing, my code contains errors that I cannot prevent. It contains 100,000 lines of code, also from third parties, such as SDL and Love2D and all things that I have no insight into. You have to protect yourself that when someone uses your software, you cannot be held liable for any damage (in any way).
I still have to figure out the exact text, but you often see something like this:
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES, OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT, OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF, OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
- “AS IS” Clause:
- The software is provided as is, without any warranty, either express or implied. This protects you from claims that the software does not perform as expected.
- Exclusion of Warranties:
- It explicitly excludes warranties such as fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement.
- Limitation of Liability:
- This excludes your liability for any damages, losses, or claims arising from the use of the software.
Signal From The Stars
update 2025
The name of the game had to be non-existent and the .com domain name had to be available. You can also see if there is a trademark on the name, which was not the case.
Finally
My intentions are good, I just want to release a game and try to fulfill the obligations as best I can. But I am only human and maybe I miss something, I assume that the law also protects me and sees that I have done everything that is expected of me.
