Bug#590734: simutrans: Non-free license terms

[Ansgar Burchardt]

Hi,

Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso <jordigh at gmail.com> writes:

> Simutrans has a non-free license. In the source tree,
> simutrans/copyright.txt forbids modification and commercial use of
> Simutrans, despite claiming to otherwise be under the artistic license.

It does say that selling and modification is forbidden without written
permission by the author, but says that the source code is available
under the Artistic License later.  I would think that counts as written
permission?

  Simutrans may not be sold or modified in any way without
  written permission by the author.
  [...]
  The source code from the program is available under the Artistic
  Licence.

Note that the simutrans/licence.txt file clarifies that "source code"
includes all the other files included: translations, MIDI files and
fonts.

The game data (pak64) is also licensed under the Artistic License.  See
the copyright file for the simutrans-pak64 package.

Moritz Muehlenhoff <jmm at inutil.org> writes:

> This copyright notice is very likely a historic leftover. I'm contacting
> the current developer team for clarification.

There is even a forum post where the original author states so [1], but
the copyright.txt file at that time did not even include the note that
the source code is available under the Artistic License (see a few posts
before the one I linked to).

Moritz, did you already contact upstream?  I did not see a post in the
forum that upstream uses.  They did clarify license terms and even
re-licensed the game data when I asked them about it, but don't care too
much otherwise.  They might be rightfully a bit annoyed right now due to
[2] a few days ago...

Regards,
Ansgar

[1] <http://archive.forum.simutrans.com/topic/06696.0/index.html#msg60560>
[2] <http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=5574.0>