Licences

[Damian]

A useful resource iDevGames could offer: three legally sound licences.
1. Allowing use of the source code (the uDev licence)
2. Freeware (allows use but retains other rights and prevents the software being sold)
3. Shareware

[akb825]

I can definitely second that request. That is one part that I haven't thought a lot of, and when I have I wondered how I could make it legally explicit without too much effort. (since I'd rather make my game than write a license agreement that 0.0001% of people will read, yet is necessary ;))

[sealfin]

...and legally binding in the N countries iDG'ers hail from :p

Not that I'm disparaging the project, those licenses would be useful, I'm just wondering whether it is perhaps a little misguided when iDG'ers have been using a limited library of licenses for uDG entries for (four?) years now...

[Damian]

Legally sound, not necessarily bound to local minutiae.

If there is a circulating library of licences, as sealfin suggests, could they be put somewhere and maybe people could suggest some others or changes?

[sealfin]

@Damian: I meant the library of licenses selected by Carlos as legit licenses for the source to uDG entries to be released under, although most of those licenses are geared towards OS needs...

[Justin Brimm]

I think a big misconception is that legal documents need to be in legalese. They in fact, do not. All legalese is there for is to prevent any possible confusion (hahahaha, but it's true) regarding what the legal documents are saying.

For example, most people would say something along these lines, "You can't sell the software as your own or pass it off as your property." Well, if this was put to the scrutiny, any good lawyer would be able to argue about what software was actually being talked about, and belonging to who exactly.

So legalese prevents this by explicitly saying that the referred to software is indeed this piece of software, the owner of said software is indeed this person or company, and that you can't use the rights too it.

But if you just think a bit about what you want to say, you don't need to use legalese. We can easily take the first example and spiffy it up for there to be no confusion.

"This software, <software name>, is the sole property of <company name> and no other person or entity is allowed to portray said software as their own property."

There we go, no legalese so it's easy to understand but there is no confusion as to exactly what it means. Believe it or not, put to the test in a court of law, that would still be a fully legal binding document.