Re: [Savannah-hackers] submission of libspider - savannah.nongnu.org

[Rudy Gevaert]

Hi,

I'm evaluating the project you submitted for approval in Savannah.

On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 09:57:47AM -0400, address@hidden wrote:
> 
> A package was submitted to savannah.nongnu.org
> This mail was sent to address@hidden, address@hidden
> 
> 
> William Cahill <address@hidden> described the package as follows:
> License: gpl
> Other License: Note: We intend to import the code, pending approval, lacking 
> Bretton's version, so there won't be any GPL issues.
> Package: libspider
> System name: libspider
> Type: non-GNU
> 
> Description:

> Libspider is a set of useful c++ classes made to ease in the
> production of 3d/2d games/programs.  The classes include plane,
> point, vector, polygon and more.  Programmers seeking to write free
> games can use this library to speed up development, by working on
> their game, instead of writing foundation classes.  The co-author,
> Matt, and I have used this library in all our game projects since it
> became stable/fairly complete, and we have found that we can move
> directly into game-specific code; So we hope others can find this
> library useful in a similar manner.  While the code was made with
> games in mind (particularly 3d, first person shooters), it can also
> be useful for other immersive environments.  Again, while three
> dimensional-capable classes are primarily used, it is a trivial task
> to make 2d games/programs as well.  Hopefully, this library can be
> used by more programmers, so we can get feedback for new features or
> for modifications others would like.  We, in our grandious
> delusions, hope that many developers will use the library, so free
> operating systems can become a good platform for game making (thence
> cutting one of the popular closed platform's large selling points).
> Our library is focused largely around organizing, maintaining,
> moving (including collision detection), and drawing the primitives
> (points, planes, polygons, etc.).  More information, like getting
> started with libspider, can be found at http://libspider.sf.net/.
> Source is available with anonymous cvs with instructions at
> http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=73527, and tarballs at
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=73527.  We
> should have a new release available within a week. (see note below)
> 

> Note: the current tarball release contains code from the old bsptree
> faq, written by Bretton Wade.  We contacted him about distributing
> his code, since we couldn't find any licenses in the faq pertaining
> to the code, and he was ambiguous as to whether he would allow it to
> be released under the GPL.  Initially, we had assumed that lacking a
> specific license would put his code under public domain, but
> recently we have decided to explicitly make similar code, and have
> it GPL'd.  So in 0.3.0 (current cvs too), we are removing his code
> and writing similar code, so everything (to date) will have been
> written by us (Matt and I) and available through the GPL.

> 
> Other Software Required:
> I'm not sure if OpenGL and GLUT are available in a normal free os 
> distribution (pretty sure they are).  Those are the only dependancies we 
> have, aside from X11.
> 
> Other Comments:

> We would like to support MacOSX/Darwin and Windows, if thats allowed
> by savannah, but we don't intend to have any platform specific
> features, and nothing that would require those OSes.  If we can
> start programmers to use libspider on popular gaming platforms, then
> it is relatively easy to bring them to Free OSes.

If you are willing to maintain a version for free operating systems,
which work as well as or better than other ports, you can
then provide versions for nonfree systems as well.  The idea is that at
no point should only-free users be at a disadvantage compared to users of
proprietary software.

Your project should always work equally well in free systems as in any
other version you provide; if you have some modules for nonfree
systems, you can delay their release until you have released the free
operating system version.

Please remove GIF image files from your project and
replace them with an other format (such as PNG or JPEG).

I saw them in the www module.

Because of the patents (Unisys and IBM) covering the LZW
compression algorithm which are used when making GIF files,
it's impossible to have free software to generate proper
GIFs.  They also apply to the compress program.

For more information read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html

I have approved your project, but please remove the gif first.  You
can send a tarball with the CVS repository to address@hidden  

Regards,


> 
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-- 
Rudy Gevaert                address@hidden              
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