Rogean and Nilbog are Breaking the Law!

[loramin]

No, I don't mean by re-creating an old game ... I mean by making modifications to the EQ Emulator source code, and not publishing those modifications.

Backstory: Project 1999 (AFAIK) is based off the EQ Emulator project, https://github.com/EQEmu/Server. As you can see at that link, that project has chosen the (absolutely terrible) GPL3 license to open source their code: https://github.com/EQEmu/Server/blob/master/LICENSE

That (again, terrible) license ... well I won't quote its legalese, but if you look at a summary of it on https://tldrlegal.com/license/gnu-ge...ense-v3-(gpl-3), you'll see:

You may copy, distribute and modify the software as long as you track changes/dates in source files. Any modifications to or software including (via compiler) GPL-licensed code must also be made available under the GPL along with build & install instructions.

In other words, unless P99 has ripped literally every last line of EQ Emulator code out ... because EQ Emulator picked Richard Stallman's (awful) GPL3 as their license ... P99 is legally required to publish their modifications to the EQ Emulator software.

Two important notes: 1) I am not a lawyer, just a copyright law hobbyist, and 2) the GPL does not in any way cover the database; they have no obligation to open source that.

But still ... thoughts?

P.S. For what it's worth I'm not a fan of this: I'd like to keep the game's secrets ... secret. But the GPL3 is, by design, unforgiving. If you use GPL3 source code in any way, even on a server, you are legally obligated to share modifications to that code (unlike the much saner GPL2).