Is GPL = free?

Hi all,

eg. If a texture is released under GPL, could we use in commercial project?

Thanks in advance

not commercially, AFAIK you can't sell things containing GPL material

nO

Yes, you could. Providing it wasn't packed or encrypted.

You need to look for LGPL material - which allows you to distribute materials with your commercial work providing that in some way you make the material available to others - such as the source code bundled with the product or available from your website.

I don't know why we're getting so much confusion, but I'll quote from an article about the GPL on Wikipedia in the hope that it clears things up.

That's not what I read. GPL forces you to make your whole product open source and freely available. This is why they brought out the Lesser GPL (LGPL) license, allowing people to use open source code in commercial products.

Then you clearly need to find new places to read about the GPL ;)

I don't know why open source immediately makes everyone think that you have to give the whole thing away.

Of course, it's bloody stupid to license textures under a license which is clearly designed to relate to code anyway.

Why do people post answers when they don't actually know what they're talking about?

You can charge money for software that includes GPLed stuff. You can even GPL your own stuff and have a commercial license for it too.

The LGPL was created mainly for libraries so that you can dynamically link them without potentially creating a derivative work. As long as you bundle object files or dynamically link, you won't have to release any of your own code.

GPL applies to the distribution of code, and the freedom to copy or modify it. It's not about preventing people from profiting from it.

The GPL makes no sense for licensing images. If you got the images from a GPLed app or game, there's no reason for you to assume that you are free to redistribute those images or create derivatives of them, as they may be under a different license. Under the terms of the GPL, you'd just have to make the images available to be edited or replaced, and any derivatives you made from them would have to be available.

Check this:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem

Good point, that didn't occur to me. Happy Sammy should clarify whether the images are explicitly licensed under GPL or whether they were just included with a game whose code was GPL, in which case there would be no automatic right to do anything with the images.


Free as in speech, not free as in beer. To (mis?)quote FlameDuck's old sig.

If the images are specifically under the GPL it's hard to tell if using the images would be considered "mere aggregation" or not. If you incbin them then you're definately in violation. If you simply provide them with the app/game with the option of using a different set, you may be in the clear.

I don't know the exact situation, but your best bet is to contact the author and ask if they'd be willing to license them under another license so you can use them. Some image files actually include copyright information in their metadata, so that might be worth a look too.

I think a lot of the vitriol over the GPL comes from people who don't understand that it's actually a license that gives you rights. If it upsets you, you have the right not to use it or write your own or buy an alternative.

Thank you for your reply.

@Gabriel: the textures are explicitly licensed under GPL.

Basically what you should do is read the licence, this should clarify most doubts.

You aren't allowed to download a GPL game and distribute it with another licence (this is stealing) unless all the code belongs to you, of course what was released as GPL will still be around as GPL and anyone is free to take the project.

Basically if you use GPL code you are meant to release it and all derivative works under the same licence and in the same conditions you recieved it (this means including the source and the same rights).

There is no reason you can't profit from GPL (many do) you can charge for downloads, compiling, support, recieve donations. But you must realize you can't deprive others from the rights you were granted by the GPL. So anyone can copy or distribute "your" code for free or a fee.

Basically GPL is two things, on one side it grants the user the right to access the code and modify it for their own needs and on the other hand it prevents unscrupulous people from stealing this code and locking it up.

So remember if you base your game on GPL code, all the code you add will be GPL as well