I don't like this idea of advertisement at all. I do not see why there would be two classes of contributors. If they want to contribute, they are very welcome. They will of course be added to credits. We can provide links to homepages in credits. But that's all.
It wouldn't be major ads though. Just small text perhaps in the loading screen: "Artwork and Sounds courtesy of Unknown Entertainment". Then another in the credits. Thats all it would take I believe. That wont affect the game at all (the welcome screen on a good computer is only displayed for 2-5 seconds :P)
I don't want the game or the website to display advertisements.
The website wont have adverts.
Please take care not to morally engage the Glob 2 community on such sensitive issues without consensus. There are people providing physical ressources (Kyle, Drazak, I) or intellectual ones (Bradley, you, ...) for free and because they like the game. We must be extremely cautious by making agreements with people that don't want to follow this free philosophy. And, in general, I would say we should refuse such agreements (of course it calls for case by case analysis).
I understand that. Thats why I brought the issue here.
Now, I spent 10 minutes writing this up. I'm not a lawyer, so its not fool proof, but it should give you some idea of what to expect. Feel free to comment. Keep in mind, we are working on something to put forward, not reject completely. If, once we come up with the final thing, they reject it, then thats the end of it. It was worth trying, as apposed to not even trying. So make constructive comments, with the thought of trying to make a deal.
Regards,
Kieran
Agreements of partnership between "Globulation 2" and "Unknown Entertainment"
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1. Licensing
1.1 Under no circumstance is "Globulation 2" to be removed from the GPL license (version 2, dated 1991) unless agreed upon by all developers of the game at the time
1.2 Under no circumstance is "Globulation 2" to become commercial, that is, it requiring payment of any kind before being able to play any part of the game
2. "Globulation 2" (the game, its source, and all data files)
2.1 "Unknown Entertainment" has no control over what is changed in the game. These decisions must be agreed upon by all developers of the game at the time
2.2 Any major decisions must be voted upon by the developers at the time, and a decision reached before anything is made final
3. Website
3.1 "Globulation 2" website/wiki remains freely editable by the public, and no major decisions or changes to it may be made without it being agreed upon by all maintainers of the website at the time
3.2 No advertisements (google, doubleclick, fastclick, or otherwise) are to be displayed on the website or wiki for whatever reason.
4. Management
4.1 All developers remain in their current positions, and are not to be restricted access of any kind unless agreed upon by all developers of the game at the time
5. Service
5.1 "Unknown Entertainment" provides Artwork, Sounds, Music, and Programming in exchange for advertisement's in game
5.2 The advertisement will be text based, displayed once in the game during the loading, in the AUTHORS file, and on any applicable change logs where new content has been added
5. Changes to this agreement
5.1 This agreement can only be changed with agreement of changes among all developers at the time
5.2 The partnership may be canceled by any party, at any time, for any reason and the game will go back to its original developers before the partnership was formed