I asked the question in the comments, but in an admittedly biased way (biased toward open-source) and I didn't get an answer. So let me ask it more objectively here:

How will LT's code be licensed?

I'm quite sure a license agreement can be made for large sums of money.
I don't expect any core source code to enter the public domain, thats for sure. (There's 2 years worth of someone's blood/sweat & tears in there)

Some utilities, mod tools, ship editors? Yeah, maybe... but that probably won't happen until after the game's release (& provided associated stretch goals were also reached).

Deej wrote:I'm quite sure a license agreement can be made for large sums of money.
I don't expect any core source code to enter the public domain, thats for sure. (There's 2 years worth of someone's blood/sweat & tears in there)

Some utilities, mod tools, ship editors? Yeah, maybe... but that probably won't happen until after the game's release (& provided associated stretch goals were also reached).

You'd be surprised how many years of how many people's blood and sweat are in the public domain. ^^

That said, I neither expect nor demand that LT's source code be publicly available under any license. Regardless, every source code has a license, be it proprietary or not. And it's a question I'd really like an answer to.

Sorry, I guess I must have missed your question in the comments section!

For now, LT will remain closed-source. I wasn't aware that closed-source projects had licenses associated with them! I do not currently have any license associated with the LT Engine.

I've been toying with the idea of OpenLT, an open-source Limit Theory implementation that the community could mod and extend, but that's quite a far-off dream. I may consider working on such a project after releasing LT. I was thinking it would be really neat to try out writing everything in Python/Cython/PyOpenGL, as I use it for prototyping and coding is just absurdly simple and fast compared to c++, which the entire LT engine is written in. That would make it super easy to extend, and I'm sure people would end up doing ridiculously-cool things with the game (as they do with every moddable game!)

But. I'm getting ahead of myself. Need to finish the real deal first!

JoshParnell wrote:I wasn't aware that closed-source projects had licenses associated with them! I do not currently have any license associated with the LT Engine.

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that if you do not have a license, then you fall back into the most restrictive license possible, given the opportunities you've explicitly given to the public. What I mean by that is that if you put a download link on a website, you explicitly give the right to people to download the thing, but not to redistribute or modify it. If you explicitly tell people to share something, still it does not grant anyone the right to extend, modify or use it as part of a bigger thing.

That said, legally, it's better to have a clear license that defines what can and cannot be done, just in case.

I've been toying with the idea of OpenLT, an open-source Limit Theory implementation that the community could mod and extend, but that's quite a far-off dream. I may consider working on such a project after releasing LT. I was thinking it would be really neat to try out writing everything in Python/Cython/PyOpenGL, as I use it for prototyping and coding is just absurdly simple and fast compared to c++, which the entire LT engine is written in. That would make it super easy to extend, and I'm sure people would end up doing ridiculously-cool things with the game (as they do with every moddable game!)

Music to my ears! I love Python so much! I hope you'll get to make OpenLT some day.

Python , I did look into that a number of years back and I still own the site http://www.pythoncoding.com as I was so impressed with its simple way of doing things, although for some reason everything I have done since has resulted me in not touching it again and I have all but forgotton that language.

P.S. I find on windows one of the best productivity tools is autohotkey at http://www.autohotkey.com which is an automation open source language. Probably equivalents in Linux, i dunno.

About the license, if you ever open it up it is your choice of course. Just be really sure before you let anyone else have use of things you do. Sleep on it for weeks before deciding that. Once you give something away you cannot get it back from people.

Jason Schupfer wrote:About the license, if you ever open it up it is your choice of course. Just be really sure before you let anyone else have use of things you do, sleep on it for weeks before deciding that, as once you give something away you cannot get it back from people.

So true. It's also one of the strengths of open-source, though, because open-source softwares have a much harder time dying than closed-source ones.

Yes, a long time ago I created a web RPG mapper program that ran great on my site I had at the time and all liked it. I then gave the source to someone else and he started another site poaching players from my site saying "look we have mapper too, come here instead." Of course I could not then take the code I had given away back.

Just be careful giving things away, not everyone plays fair or straight.

Open source however is often used when it is obvious it is a good way to compete against market leaders like Linux against windows or Open Office against Microsoft Office.

Yeah, if I did make OpenLT at some point, it would obviously not be for profit...I would basically just want to see what people could do with the space sim genre if I gave them the starter code for it (i.e., Limit Theory)! I think if people had an easy-to-understand (read: Python ) implementation of a space sim, we could really get some awesome community involvement in a cutting-edge space sim. That just sound so cool to me!

Jason Schupfer wrote:Yes, a long time ago I created a web RPG mapper program that ran great on my site I had at the time and all liked it. I then gave the source to someone else and he started another site poaching players from my site saying "look we have mapper too, come here instead." Of course I could not then take the code I had given away back.

Not cool

Jason Schupfer wrote:P.S. I find on windows one of the best productivity tools is autohotkey at http://www.autohotkey.com which is an automation open source language. Probably equivalents in Linux, i dunno.

Forgot to mention..I used to be *obsessed* with AHK. No joke, the entire procedural music software that I wrote was written in AHK (the one that made the samples you listened to). Man, I was crazy. I had no idea how much more appropriate Python or c++ would have been for such a task....but AHK sure did make GUIs easy!

I still use it frequently for making keyboard shortcut programs as well as simple GUI-based things. It's a fantastically-powerful little tool to have available...shame that it isn't as portable as Python.

Sorry for the triple post

Agreed, it is so easy to get totally involved with AHK, as you can do so much technical things so quickly with it. But yes it is limited in only on windows.

Oops I gone off thread topic somewhat