An interesting gpl case

[IAHM-COL]

Also we need to differentiate between

a) club rules ie ALL FGAddon must be GPL

Only God really knows what are the club rules. They made them on the go. And it depends to whom they are treating.
Examples.

1. The CRJ700 in FGADDon is not a GPL material anymore. It contains bundle Creative Commons material. This has been allowed.
FGMEMBERS actually moved the CRJ700 from FGADDon into non-GPL for the same reason
2. Currently the license of the SpaceShuttle is disputed. Some say (One of the author says), it contains "fully copyrighted" (he means ALL RIGHTS RESERVED) material bundled within.

So is FGADDON all GPL? Arguably.

b) License rules.

Unlike the FGADDon mess, there is nothing to be "negotiated" here

It is all written down, and I am sure you've read it. But if you had not:
Ver. 2: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html
Ver. 3: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

That's what it is. Out of that text it's all wasting typos. Some will say it is a matter of interpretation. It is not. It is a matter of enforceability (under the law).

[bomber]

I have to bow to your knowledge here.... so I'll agree that Daweed doesn't have a leg to stand on anyway you look at it.

Now a planes skin texture is derived from nothing... and yet artists are attempted to be forced to publish in GPL...

[bomber]

Some will say it is a matter of interpretation.

No, courts just ensure a standard interpretation is applied.... and if that means you're guilty you are.

Now at the moment we have no standard interpretation for the meaning of 'whole' as applied to a plane used in Flightgear, and as such we have a level of confusion.

[IAHM-COL]

Now a planes skin texture is derived from nothing... and yet artists are attempted to be forced to publish in GPL...

No. They are not.
Someone can 100% make a CC, or ALL rights reserved or "I wrote this non-enforceable license yesternight and translated from Russian to half-English"-licensed texture for any flightgear plane they want.

They can then go ahead and publish that texture in any means acceptable. But not in any means not acceptable.

MEANS NOT ACCEPTABLE

1. Bundling the non GPL texture with the rest of the GPL plane, and distribute elsewhere
(this does not mean they can't put the texture as an standalone add-on!)
2. Adding such texture to GPL collections (such as FGMEMBERS _withing the plane, see 1), FGADDon (arguably GPL), or to the FlightGear database. Let's be honest: the database could accept non-GPL textures and append a license to each texture they have, but "could accept" and "must accept" are different English acceptions.
3. The Flightgear paintkit and Livery database (see 2) which only accepts GPL material.

[IAHM-COL]

Some will say it is a matter of interpretation.

No, courts just ensure a standard interpretation is applied.... and if that means you're guilty you are.

Exact my point

Now at the moment we have no standard interpretation for the meaning of 'whole' as applied to a plane used in Flightgear, and as such we have a level of confusion.

You and I have been there down this path. We already agreed to disagree

[bomber]

2 and 3 are club rules... and I can accept them, I don't have to agree with them, but if I want to be in the club then those are the rules.

1 is the nugget of the debate in which I'm having...

1. Bundling the non GPL texture with the rest of the GPL plane, and distribute elsewhere
(this does not mean they can't put the texture as an standalone add-on!)

FSF does not prevent you from distributing together separate works... and a skin texture is separate to a flight model....

If you want to make 1) a club rule then by all means do so.... but in bundling separate works together a person is not committing any licence violations.... just that FSF would 'like you not too bundle GPL and non-GPL'... because of the obvious issues that we've seen.

However IF a license existed that met all the requirements of the authors of Flightgear then there'd be no issue with bundling GPL and non-GPL together.... not withstanding that FSF would still prefer it if you didn't.

[KL-666]

I came across a very likely case of gpl violation. Unless these people have rebuilt the planes from scratch, they can not say this.

But, clearly notified, these models and every snapshots, photos, are under license Creative Common BY-NC-ND. (......) BTW: Some of these models were originally distributed under the GPV2 License . We are longer maintainig and distributing those versions by the same GPLV2. Licence

https://sites.google.com/site/grtuxhangar/

They say they have taken gpl models and put them completely under BY-NC-ND license.

1) You can not un-gpl what has been distributed as gpl before. So any material that was gpl earlier must remain gpl in their newly licensed package.
2) Only added material that is *not* depending upon the gpl material may be non-gpl.

It will be very interesting to see if they indeed rebuilt the gpl material from scratch again, or that their models contain the original gpl material and that they have even built upon that gpl material. In the latter case they would be in violation of gpl for the gpl material plus the derived material.

Kind regards, Vincent

[OPFOR77]

They're the estate holders of the original creator. So, yes, they can relicense them. All old GPL material was still being released GPL. All their current projects are GPL, the website is out of date.

[KL-666]

Nope Opfor, you do not understand gpl. Even an original author can not un-gpl previously released gpl material. And it does not matter whether old material is released gpl separately. It matters whether the previously gpl released material (again no matter by whom) is in the newly licensed package. If so, there is a case of violation. Do read the gpl license again, if you have actually done ever.

Kind regards, Vincent

[OPFOR77]

It's seems the GPL FAQ would disagree with you. Maybe you're the one who should read it?

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#ReleaseUnderGPLAndNF

But, if you truly believe there is a GPL violation, gather all your evidence and send it to the copyright holder, as the copyright holder is the only person legally allowed to enforce the license. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html

Oh wait. They are the copyright holder.