Re: Lua licensing thoughts

[Benjamin Tolputt <btolputt@...>]

Florian Weimer wrote:
> The FSF position with regard to some bytecode interpreters (Emacs, for
> instance) is that the GPL extends to the bytecode

The reason for this is "boiler-plate" which is embedded in the
byte-code. FSF maintains (and correctly so) that when the byte-code
contains GPL'ed boiler-plate code without which it would not work, it is
a derivative of the GPL'ed code. Note that this only applies to "some"
bytecode interpreters, and these are ones that originate under the GPL
*and* have substantial "boilerplate" code embedded by the compiler.

There are a couple of things to remember:

   1. Lua is not GPL-licensed. It's license is GPL compatible, and hence
      can be included in GPL applications, but the terms it's copyright
      terms are still MIT
   2. Lua "bytecode" can originate from non-GPL compilers (obviously,
      standard "luac" comes to mind), as such the bytecode is not
      covered by GPL as "derived" by a GPL-compiler
   3. Provided the game engine being worked on could accept alternate
      bytecode, graphics, audio, etc - the GPL'd application is an
      "engine" with the Lua bytecode, sound files, etc as "content" that
      can come packaged with the GPL application as an "amalgamated
      distribution" - in other words, the content need not be GPL to
      comply with the GPL license.

It is still my strong opinion (though I am not a lawyer), that
distributing Lua bytecode with a GPL application is covered by the
amalgamation terms of the GPL license and as such one could make a GPL
game engine with alternately licensed content.

-- 
Regards,

Benjamin Tolputt
Analyst Programmer
Mob:   0417 456 505
Email: btolputt@bigpond.net.au

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