[DGD] Phantasmal's contributor policy/legal arse covering

[Noah Gibbs]

  I agree with others that this doesn't really add anything useful to the existing GPL.  I'd worry, actually, that this may conflict with the terms of the GPL if the "Phantasmal Copyright" includes the additional clause you added.  GPL is very picky about how you can restrict rights of redistribution going forward.  So it's not clear that this is legal.

  I'd go back to straight-up GPL if I were you, since that leaves us 100% in the clear for GPL terms -- and I agree with others that the additional "agree to remedy"-type terms you added are unlikely to do us good in any probable situation.

  And yes, a large corporation could hose us easily no matter what, in the sense that you can sue anybody for anything in the US, and the legal fees to defend are generally prohibitive for most folks.  That's not unique to Phantasmal, or to source code -- it's pretty much a fact of existence in the US (and I assume at least some other countries).  But realistically, nobody stands to gain from having us remove the code (which is pretty much all they could demand of us), so it's unlikely to ever be an issue.

--- On Wed, 2/18/09, Shentino <shentino at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Shentino <shentino at gmail.com>
> Subject: [DGD] Phantasmal's contributor policy/legal arse covering
> To: "All about Dworkin's Game Driver" <dgd at dworkin.nl>
> Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 2:17 PM
> Just as a precautionary measure, I opted to post this:
> 
> http://phantasmal.sourceforge.net/Development/Policy.html
> 
> to phantasmals website, as a bit of legal CYA to make sure
> some
> &*@#^*^ patent troll doesn't swoop down on us
> 
> Does anyone have comments one way, another way, or even
> sideways about it?
> 
> And do any current phantasmal developers have any problems
> or issues
> with the language?
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