Is Andor’s Trail properly licensed?

[tactical371]

Usually, when I go to look at code in github, there is some sort of “LICENSE” file that says verbatim what the code is licensed under. For example, the program “OnionShare” is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3. The complete text of that license can be found at https://github.com/onionshare/onionshar ... ICENSE.txt .

However, for Andor’s Trail, I do not find an equivalent file. Instead, I find two things. First, in the About/help section of the game, under licenses, it says that the game is licensed under the GPLv2+, and it gives a link to http://www.gnu.org/licenses. But it does not directly show the text of the license in the game itself.

capture1.jpg

Second, the file at https://github.com/AndorsTrailRelease/a ... /readme.md says the following-

“Licenses

Code

Andor's Trail code is released under GNU GPL v2.

Content

Andor's Trail gameplay content is copyright by their respective authors and has only been licensed for use in Andor's Trail.

Graphics

The graphics licenses and contributions can be found here.”

capture_0000001.png

But here, there is not any text of the GNU GPL v2 either. And it does not say that the end-user can relicense under a later version of the GPL, while the in-game about section does say that. If anything, this readme file implies that the game can only be licensed under the GPLv2, which would be a contradition. It is also unclear how the code would be under the GPL but the gameplay created by the code would be under some sort of exclusive copyright.

Regardless, the game’s repository seems to lack the actual text of the GPL. Would these problems lead to the license for Andor’s Trail to be considered invalid in a court of law? I ask because as far as I know, we still do not know whether the Federal BOP version is being licensed under the GPL or if the copyleft is being violated. I would imagine that some lawyer over at Keefe Group or whatever thought through the copyright issues before endorsing its use in the prison tablets.

So, is Andor’s Trail properly licensed? Or is the BOP exploiting improper licensing in order to use the game?

[tactical371]

In fact, it looks like you ARE supposed to include a copy of the GPL with the program, rather than just link to the GPL in the about section. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.ht ... stIInclude .

Why does the GPL require including a copy of the GPL with every copy of the program? (#WhyMustIInclude)

Including a copy of the license with the work is vital so that everyone who gets a copy of the program can know what their rights are.
It might be tempting to include a URL that refers to the license, instead of the license itself. But you cannot be sure that the URL will still be valid, five years or ten years from now. Twenty years from now, URLs as we know them today may no longer exist.
The only way to make sure that people who have copies of the program will continue to be able to see the license, despite all the changes that will happen in the network, is to include a copy of the license in the program.

[sdevaney]

Is every single box checked, t crossed and i doted, like it should be? Probably not, the game has gone through several migrations, maintainers, and contributors over the years. Also at least one license change like you mentioned from v2 to v2+. There's really no reason to worry about any legal action, there wouldn't be anything gained by it. We are going to continue to provide the game until such a time as there's no one else willing to contribute and carry it on.

As far as code versus content, we can say safely the code itself is under GPL, we can't say that all content that contributors provided items such as images and text, are under GPL because not all content was provided under that license, and some was explicitly licensed to AT bye their creator, anyone else would also have to get their own permissions to use it.