Mod licensing and "etiquette"

[DStaal]

On one hand you want a license that makes it easy to continue a mod when the mod author leaves, gets busy, etc.  On the other hand, there's a disservice to the community to having multiple slightly-differing branches of commonly-used mods in circulation.  (We do have a couple of mods where that's the case - and I know at least one other mod author who says they don't bother to troubleshoot mod interactions with those mod sets, because it depends on which fork you're using, and which build of that fork.)

But that's easy to solve: any Open Source advocate will understand that you want to *contribute to the upstream where possible*.  You only split where necessary, whether due to differing visions or due to other issues.  Most mod authors here are welcoming to improvements to their code, so there's rarely a reason to fork unless the author leaves the community.  It's *polite* to ask the mod author (if they can be contacted) if they've left or if they are just temporarily busy - and it saves both you and them work when they do come back and you want to re-merge the forks.

[fluffysheap]

 

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

I'm a bit "legalistic", I talk by the letter of the law. Perhaps I I missed what you are meaning and attached myself to what you wrote instead.

The name "KerbalJointReinforcement" is property of Ferram4. Point. There's no argument about.

Anyone willing to use this name need his explicity and registered permission. Using this name without it is a copyright infringement, subject to sanctions from the license and from the law.

You are right, a renaming is needed. But also a reasonable effort to prevent anyone to misrepresent your derivative with the original. 

KJR2 I don't think it's good, it implies a follow-up from Ferram4.

Adding "Continued", "redux", etc, should be OK due Forum Rules. But don't try using "Star Trek Continued" stunt on Real Life, Paramount will sue you for sure.

Sorry, this just isn't right.  If you wish to go by the letter of the law, you ought to know what it says.

In general, only works themselves are covered by copyright.  The names of such works are protected by trademark, not copyright (https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html).  This is why you see Disney, for example, registering names of characters, upcoming and current movies including in many cases working titles, iconic props e.g. "light saber," etc. as trademarks.  Your example of Star Trek is also covered by trademark (https://trademarks.justia.com/731/07/star-trek-73107055.html).  Logos, while they are artistic works that are also covered by copyright, generally need to be trademarked to have legal protection with regards to identifying a specific company or product.  If you look closely you'll see trademark notices everywhere, for example, in the footer of any Wikipedia page.  This is because names are protected only by trademark, not copyright.  Otherwise, anyone could create their own website and call it Wikipedia.  While these websites are from an American perspective, generally speaking trademark law is similar enough between countries, and protected by international treaties, so that you can pretty much apply it anywhere.  While copyright does not require registration, trademark does.  Simply creating something gives you automatic copyright - not trademark.

That doesn't mean it's good practice to misrepresent your product as someone else's.  I couldn't find forum rules about this, but of course, it wouldn't be a good idea to do it.  Rules or not, I'd expect moderators to shut down a thread that tried to create confusion with an existing, actively developed mod.  Anyone should make a distinction between their version of something and the original if it might cause confusion, as is frequently done by "<mod name> continued" or whatever other distinguishing names.  That's just good practice, because confusion benefits nobody.  However, there's no legal force behind it, and, in absence of trademark, no minimum standard for what constitutes drawing such a distinction.

A great example of the sort of thing that happens in the software world is the history of EMACS.  EMACS was originally written in the 1970s by Richard Stallman and Guy Steele and the source code was in the public domain.  A fork of it was created by James Gosling (yes, the Java guy) who called it Gosling EMACS, which he could do because there was no trademark on the name and the code was public domain.  Stallman copied some of Gosling's code back into the original fork.  A proprietary software company, UniPress, produced a proprietary version based on Gosling's code, and even asked the original authors to stop distributing their versions, although legally they had no right to do this.  It's good that they tried, though, because Stallman went on to create the GPL afterward.  Of course, EMACS is still here, and UniPress isn't.  Later, after adoption of the GPL, Lucid Emacs split off from EMACS, and it was also necessarily licensed under the GPL.  Lucid WAS a trademarked name because it belonged to a software company called Lucid.  However, Lucid went bankrupt, and while people wanted to continue using and modifying the code (explicitly permitted under the GPL), nobody knew what would happen to the name, so they changed it to XEmacs, which still exists today.  There are probably twenty other forks of EMACS, many of which use variations on the name.

I think this whole thread is, in large part, a result of what Richard Stallman warned about when he opposed calling Free Software "open source."  Open source doesn't say anything about the moral rights to use the software.  It just says you can see the source, and it allows people to erroneously conclude that there's something somehow wrong, or worse illegal, about redistributing or modifying it, because of the relentless propaganda campaign waged by organizations such as the RIAA/MPAA.  Free software tells you exactly how the software is intended to be used, modified, and distributed: Any way you like, so long as you do not infringe on the rights of others to do the same thing.  While KJR is GPL, and thus explicitly covered by not only the legal but moral argument, the same thing is true of Creative Commons licensed works.  Creative Commons licenses are specifically designed to allow anyone to make and distribute modifications, at any time, for any reason - so long as they follow CC's similar but not identical rules; CC-BY is roughly equivalent to the MIT or BSD licenses, whereas CC-BY-SA is roughly equivalent to the GPL.  Anyone who doesn't want to grant these rights can use a CC-ND license, or a proprietary license, which doesn't permit the distribution of modified versions.

In all cases, the original licenses speak to the author's intent when they published their material.  It's inappropriate to put words in their mouth by making assumptions about what they really wanted or should do.  The question has already been answered.

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, fluffysheap said:

Sorry, this just isn't right.  If you wish to go by the letter of the law, you ought to know what it says.

Never be sorry by correcting other people's errors. Thanks for the info. 

However...  :-)

There're Trademarks and Registered Trademarks. Your mileage may vary, but at least in some coutries you don't need to register a trademark unless you need (or want) some additional rights. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unregistered_trademark

TL;DR: It's the difference between (TM) and (R) on the trademarks

 

And trademarks are covered on some Licenses. BSD explicitly forbids association with and use of the name of the licensor.

Also, give a peek on what CC BY 3.0 says about.

— POST — EDIT — 

This is my reasoning for trademark infringement being also a copyright infringement (at least, for some licenses):

From the GPLv2:

7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

My understanding is that by using a trademark (registered or not) that could lead you to court, where you could be told to stop the distribution, you may not distribute the program under the GPL. Since you can't distribute the program under the GPL, any guy that had received a copy of the work, had it without the GPL terms. So, or the work has an additional license, or the thing is A.R.R., and that copy is not licensed at all.

 

— POST — POST — EDIT --

And this is my reasoning on the Forum Rules.

From the Forum Guidelines:

1.3 Notices/infractions/bans

Moderators work together and use their best judgment in each situation. If these rules are broken, any member of staff may hand out a fair punishment, e.g., removing content, issuing a warning etc. Harsher punishment (such as a ban) may be used when there is a severe or repeated offense. 

From the TTI's Terms of Service: (enphasis are mine)

(1) you will only use the Online Services for lawful purposes, in compliance with applicable laws, for your own personal, non-commercial use; 

[…]

 (3) you will not use the Online Services to create, upload, or post any material that is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, obscene, profane, hateful, harassing, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of one’s privacy, in violation of any law, or is inconsistent with community standards; 

[..]

(4) you will not post, upload, or create any copyrighted material using the Online Services unless you own the copyright in and to such material;

[…]

By creating UGC, posting messages, uploading files, creating files, inputting data, or engaging in any form of communication with or through the Online Services, you are granting the Company a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to: (1) use, copy, sublicense, adapt, transmit, publicly perform, or display any such material; and (2) sublicense to third-parties the unrestricted right to exercise any of the foregoing rights granted with respect to the material.

Edited November 20, 2018 by Lisias
Added link; moar info.

[HebaruSan]

13 hours ago, Lisias said:

If you read carefully the licenses involved, you will find that every one of them explicitly forbid adding any other restrictions beyond the ones stated on the license, and, unfortunately, that's final and it's not open to debate: It's the license, comply to it or use something else.

Some licenses are even harsher, they revoke the rights if you, intentionally or not, violate some of their terms - adding restrictions one of such violations.

By any perspective you use, it's impossible to demand such "respect" by using any of the Open Source licenses accepted by the Open Source Org. And for the most used licenses used here, it's also a license violation itself, liable to rights revoking what could render the licensor in bad situations.

Licenses don't grant rights to copyright holders. They have them by virtue of being copyright holders. This is bunkum.

The copyright holder's choice is binding. You can release a work under multiple different licenses and allow the user to choose the one they like best. You can modify a license before using it. You can declare that a license applies given conditions or exceptions. Even if a license had terms that "forbid adding any other restrictions beyond the ones stated on the license" and it was applicable, you could just edit that clause out of the license!

Of course, none of that is relevant, because no one is trying to incorporate the courtesy of contacting the original author into a license.

[linuxgurugamer]

On 11/10/2018 at 9:55 PM, TiktaalikDreaming said:

[Moderator note:  This thread was split off from the Kerbal Joint Reinforcement thread, since it diverged into a long series of posts which are off-topic for the KJR thread since they're about general licensing / etiquette issues.]

While true, I think any coding modder that could do this justice, would prefer a polite handing over of the torch, so to speak.

Just an FYI, I have tried contacting @ferram4 about KJR, and received no response or reply.

IMHO, if a license allows, I make a reasonable effort to contact the mod author.  If I dont get any reply, then I feel free to adopt it.  However, I try several times before giving up.

I also change the name (is I haven't heard from the author) to indicate that it isn't the original.  In those cases where I do get a response, and the author is willing, I have continued the mod under the original name

37 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Of course, none of that is relevant, because no one is trying to incorporate the courtesy of contacting the original author into a license

For a very good reason.  Courtesy is not a legal concept, but a civil action.  While never required, it's always nice to be on the receiving end

[Lisias]

17 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

I also change the name (is I haven't heard from the author) to indicate that it isn't the original.  In those cases where I do get a response, and the author is willing, I have continued the mod under the original name

You do it also in sites others than the Forum?

[linuxgurugamer]

6 minutes ago, Lisias said:

You do it also in sites others than the Forum?

I have sent messages on the forum,  both PMs and in the thread.  I've tried Reddit at times, and Github if they have the repo there

[flywlyx]

As far as I understand, any Modder for KSP should "waive and agree never to assert any moral rights of paternity, publication, reputation, or attribution with respect to other players' use and enjoyment of such assets in connection with the Software and related goods and services under applicable law. "

Is it even possible to cite a license in MOD?

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

I have sent messages on the forum,  both PMs and in the thread.  I've tried Reddit at times, and Github if they have the repo there

But he had, already, granted you the rights? By email perhaps?

22 minutes ago, flywlyx said:

As far as I understand, any Modder for KSP should "waive and agree never to assert any moral rights of paternity, publication, reputation, or attribution with respect to other players' use and enjoyment of such assets in connection with the Software and related goods and services under applicable law. "

No. He must grant TTI right to secure access for them for TTI's users. See the "non-exclusive," on the terms of service. You still own your work, and are free to do whatever you want from it (including selling it). What happens is that TTI wants that people that had downloaded something from this site remains able to keep downloading and using it for the years to come.

[linuxgurugamer]

3 minutes ago, Lisias said:

But he had, already, granted you the rights? By email perhaps?

Not sure who you are referring to.  I was answering in general, not about a specific mod.  I make a reasonable effort to contact the original mod author (or last maintainer) before adopting a mod.

[flywlyx]

38 minutes ago, Lisias said:

No. He must grant TTI right to secure access for them for TTI's users. See the "non-exclusive," on the terms of service. You still own your work, and are free to do whatever you want from it (including selling it). What happens is that TTI wants that people that had downloaded something from this site remains able to keep downloading and using it for the years to come.

2

Under "USER CREATED CONTENT", it doesn't mention it is non-exclusive, and the right TT granted is actually "exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, fully transferable, and sub-licensable worldwide right and license". I understand what TT wants, but I don't think any of us can grand another license since TT has already claimed the exclusive license includes " to use your contributions in any way and for any purpose in connection with the Software and related goods and services, including, but not limited to, the rights to reproduce, copy, adapt, modify, perform, display, publish, broadcast, transmit, or otherwise communicate to the public by any means whether now known or unknown and distribute your contributions without any further notice or compensation to you of any kind for the whole duration of protection granted to intellectual property rights by applicable laws and international conventions"

[Lisias]

23 minutes ago, flywlyx said:

Under "USER CREATED CONTENT", it doesn't mention it is non-exclusive, and the right TT granted is actually "exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, fully transferable, and sub-licensable worldwide right and license". I understand what TT wants, but I don't think any of us can grand another license since TT has already claimed the exclusive license includes " to use your contributions in any way and for any purpose in connection with the Software and related goods and services, including, but not limited to, the rights to reproduce, copy, adapt, modify, perform, display, publish, broadcast, transmit, or otherwise communicate to the public by any means whether now known or unknown and distribute your contributions without any further notice or compensation to you of any kind for the whole duration of protection granted to intellectual property rights by applicable laws and international conventions"

read again. I will quote every paragraph on the ToS that mentions the word "exclusive". I quoted every single mention of the word "exclusive". Please pinpoint the paragraph where you think you are granting exclusive rights for the mods you post about here.

Quote

SUBMISSIONS

The Company welcomes input from the gaming community. You hereby grant the Company an exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, fully transferable, and sub-licensable worldwide right and license to use any submissions you submit to the Company of any nature whatsoever, whether through a posting on a Company website, email to the Company, mail, or any other means and without any obligation to account, credit, or make any payment to you for any use thereof. No purported reservation of rights incorporated in or accompanying any submission shall have any force or effect.

Please note that your MODs are not hosted on the Forum, but on whatever you want. Your posts, emails, et all are hosted on this site (or their servers) and so, subjected to that rule.

Please note, also, that your screenshots are not hosted in this site neither.

 

Quote

LICENSE TO THE COMPANY

By creating UGC, posting messages, uploading files, creating files, inputting data, or engaging in any form of communication with or through the Online Services, you are granting the Company a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to: (1) use, copy, sublicense, adapt, transmit, publicly perform, or display any such material; and (2) sublicense to third-parties the unrestricted right to exercise any of the foregoing rights granted with respect to the material. The foregoing grants shall include the right to exploit any proprietary rights in such material, including but not limited to rights under copyright, trademark, service mark, or patent laws under any relevant jurisdiction. Please consult the EULA at www.take2games.com/eula for additional license terms related to our software.

Here you grant TTI the right to sublicense the material to third-parties. Well, we are (also) these third-parties, do you know?  

You don't want them to have such rights? It's fine. Don't post it on the forum. Talk about it on Reddit (but not on Steam, as the Steam Forums are contracted by TTI). Just don't mention it here, and I think you should be ok.

 

 

Quote

YOUR RESPONSIBILTY TO THE COMPANY

You are responsible and liable to the Company and its affiliated companies, officers, directors, employees, agents, licensors, and suppliers in respect of all losses, expenses, damages, and costs, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, resulting from any violation by you of this Agreement. The Company reserves the right to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter that you are responsible and liable for under this paragraph.

Nothing about intelectual rights. To tell you the true, I think that they are saying that they could assume exclusively your defense if something goes wrong, what makes them co-responsible. I'm not really sure, but it appears that they willing to cover your SAS on this.

 

Quote

LITIGATION ISSUES

This Agreement is entered into in the State of New York and shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the State of New York, exclusive of its choice of law rules.

The End User License Agreement https://www.take2games.com/eula contains a binding individual arbitration and class action waiver provision that affects your rights with respect to any ‘Dispute’ between you and the Company, and requires you and the Company to resolve Disputes in binding, individual arbitration, and not in court. You have a right to opt out of the Binding Individual Arbitration section as explained in the EULA. Please read it carefully before installing or using any Company software or services. The Binding Individual Arbitration section shall not apply to the extent prohibited by the laws of your country of residence. For any disputes not subject to binding individual arbitration, you and the Company agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts in New York County, New York, and to waive any jurisdictional, venue, or inconvenient forum objections to such courts (but without affecting either party’s rights to remove a case to federal court if permissible). This paragraph will be interpreted as broadly as applicable law permits. For example, if you are a resident of a European Union member state, you will benefit from any mandatory provisions of consumer protection law in the member state in which you are resident, and you can bring legal proceedings in relation to this Agreement in the courts of the member state in which you are resident. The Company has the right to prosecute civil claims against you for any violation of its End User License Agreement, the Terms of Service, the Privacy Policy, or any other governing terms and conditions related to its software and services, whether for breach of contract, violation of common law rights, or violation of any applicable state or federal statute. Any violation by you of such governing terms shall constitute an affirmative defense (whether characterized as arising at law or in equity) against any claim you might assert against the Company in connection with the Online Services.

I don't like this paragraph - but it doesn'y says anything about granting IP rights to them. So, out of scope of your argument.

 

Quote

To meet the notice requirements under the DMCA, the notification must be a written communication that includes the following: (1) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed; (2) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site; (3) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the material; (4) Information reasonably sufficient to permit us to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted; (5) A statement that the complaining party has a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law; and (6) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Same thing.

— — — — 

And that is EVERY mention of the word "exclusive" on the whole Terms of Service. I failed to detected where TTI is claiming full and exclusive rights on your creations. Please, identify it for us.

 

Edited November 20, 2018 by Lisias
moar legal mambo jambo

[flywlyx]

2 minutes ago, Lisias said:

read again. I will quote every paragraph on the ToS that mentions the word "exclusive". I quoted every single mention of the word "exclusive". Please pinpoint the paragraph where you think you are granting exclusive rights for the mods you post about here .Please note that your MODs are note  hosted on the Forum, but on whatever you want. Your posts, emails, et all are hosted on this site and so, submitted to that rule. Please note, also, that your screenshots are not hosted in this site neither.

4

What I mentioned is from EULA, unless you think KSP MOD is not included in "USER CREATED CONTENT", I don't think you can ignore TTI's claims there.

[Lisias]

22 hours ago, flywlyx said:

What I mentioned is from EULA, unless you think KSP MOD is not included in "USER CREATED CONTENT", I don't think you can ignore TTI's claims there.

The KSP EULA is subject to the TTI Terms of Service, and not vice versa. Any term on the EULA that contradicts any paragraph of the TTI's ToS is null and void. [not exactly - I was thinking on the site, not on the software]

— POST — EDIT --

But yet, you have a good point to be discussed.

— POST — POST — EDIT : Food for though.

There're rights that you can "wave", and there're some few that you can't.

In Brazil, trying to force me to waive an right (or to fail to comply to a duty) using the legal system is, here, a Federal Crime: Indirect Extortion. I don't know if it would be applied to a Company, but it's for sure applicable to a person working for a Company, and USA and Brazil have legal agreements that would allow the MPF (Ministério Público Federal) to prosecute (or to sue - legalese ir hard enough on my own tongue!) such a person once a denounce is filed. And vice versa, by the way - I do something unlawful to someone in USA, the USA courts can prosecute/sue/aaargh!!!! me here.

Authorship is a guaranteed right around here, there must be a contract where I explicitly transfer the authorship to the contractor in advance. [correction: Authorship is not transferrable. Once I author something, there's nothing anyone can do to change that. I can transfer ownership, but the new owner will have to acknowledge my authorship for the rest of the work's existence]. The right to transfer the authorship [ownership] is [also] unwaivable, as far as I know [i.e., the only way to receive ownership of my works is the same as any other property of mine: by sell, by inheritance, by a action of the Law - the term in PT-BR is "Direito Patrimônial"). So there's a good chance that such clausule is null and void on my country - i.e., it's plain ignored by any Court of Law around here, and any attempt to force it would be acting in bad faith (AFAIK).

But yet… You have a good point to be discussed. I forgot about this, it was already discussed here, on Forum.

— POST — POST — POST — EDIT

In time, the EULA talks about copyrights, but not on TRADEMARKS. Perhaps an exploitable loophole?

Edited November 21, 2018 by Lisias
post edit _.and a awful amount of bad grammars! X-(

[Snark]

Folks, let's try not to get too sidetracked on the EULA issue?  This thread's about mod licensing and "etiquette" in the sense of when modder A makes a fork of modder B's mod and continues it-- i.e. modder-to-modder interaction.

The EULA is certainly something that can be discussed-- and there have been plenty of threads addressing that-- but this thread's not really about that.  Thanks.

[Vanamonde]

Posts about the EULA have been removed. Seriously now, guys. That's not the subject of this thread. 

[Benjamin Kerman]

I think it really just comes down to a question of morals. Having a file in the mod isn't going to make someone who's desperate to take credit for something stop what they're doing, and that's that. There are some people who will straight up laugh at you when you ask them to distribute YOUR software with YOUR license included. In this case, with a relatively good community, I think it can be agreed that there's always the master fork of a mod, and side forks are considered unofficial. If the master decides to integrate them, great, but otherwise it's a use at your own risk situation. 

Contacting mod authors is a must before making a release with the new fork (exactly what @linuxgurugamer does), but unofficial forks are perfectly legal and probably encouraged, as it would help the mod grow and become better, as long as those who make them are willing for them to be merged back into the official branch. 

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

I think it really just comes down to a question of morals

No. We live in a Rule of Law, not on a Rule of Morals. You are free to live under the rule of your morals, but you don't have the right to impose it to anyone.

2 hours ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

Contacting mod authors is a must before making a release with the new fork

No, it's not a must. And depending of the license adopted, if the mod author demand it he will be on license infringement himself. Every Open Source license make it perfectly clear: the work's author are not allowed to add further restrictions. Some licenses tell you just to ignore such demanding, but a few harsher ones revokes the license if the author tries that, essentially rendering the work unlicensed if the author does not have full copyrights on the whole work (as by a fork or by accepting pull requests - committers are authors too! Every single one of them).

[Benjamin Kerman]

@Lisias As I said before, I think that within our community, even without laws holding us in place, it is a must to ask for permission before releasing your own version of the mod. 

10 hours ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

unofficial forks are perfectly legal and probably encouraged, as it would help the mod grow and become better, as long as those who make them are willing for them to be merged back into the official branch. 

If we lived in a world where people lived by the word and not the spirit of the law, people would just [snip]. We, fortunately, live in a time where this is not the case, and where certain gestures are appreciated, even if uncalled for. This includes asking for permission before releasing an edited version of a mod, even if you don't get a response. 

So yes, we do live in a land of laws, [snip]

Edited November 25, 2018 by Snark
Redacted by moderator

[Lisias]

43 minutes ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

@Lisias As I said before, I think that within our community, even without laws holding us in place, it is a must to ask for permission before releasing your own version of the mod. 

I don't agree.

[HebaruSan]

1 minute ago, Lisias said:

I don't agree.

How many abandoned mods have you adopted so far?

[TiktaalikDreaming]

8 hours ago, Lisias said:

No. We live in a Rule of Law, not on a Rule of Morals. You are free to live under the rule of your morals, but you don't have the right to impose it to anyone.

You don't "live in a Rule of Law".  Countries (sane ones anyway) are governed by a rule of law.  But people live in societies.  And, so far, the KSP modding society (societies are always nebulous) has generally stuck by the "ask first" policy.  [snip]

Edited November 25, 2018 by Snark
Redacted by moderator

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

You don't "live in a Rule of Law".  Countries (sane ones anyway) are governed by a rule of law.  But people live in societies.  And, so far, the KSP modding society (societies are always nebulous) has generally stuck by the "ask first" policy.  [snip]

[snip]

There're no Society without legal bindings - and even this forum has some, that every one of us should follow as close as we can.

The licenses used on the add-ons are cristal clear - no further restrictions are allowed, and some of them revoke the rights if this rule is broken.

This is final. I'll not talk again about this - the ones that would listen, already had, and the ones that didn't, never will.

Edited November 25, 2018 by Snark
Redacted by moderator

[HebaruSan]

9 minutes ago, Lisias said:

The licenses used on the add-ons are cristal clear - no further restrictions are allowed, and some of them revoke the rights if this rule is broken.

Please stop spreading this silly disinformation. A license cannot revoke a copyright holder's rights, and no one here is saying you are legally required to contact original authors.

[Wyzard]

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

And depending of the license adopted, if the mod author demand it he will be on license infringement himself. Every Open Source license make it perfectly clear: the work's author are not allowed to add further restrictions.

12 minutes ago, Lisias said:

The licenses used on the add-ons are cristal clear - no further restrictions are allowed, and some of them revokes the rights if this rule is broken.

You're referring to things like section 10 of the GPLv3?  I think you're misunderstanding slightly.  The copyright holder isn't bound by those terms.

When you create a copyrighted work like a KSP mod, you're the copyright holder, so you have the right to copy and distribute it however you want; that's what copyright means.  Nobody else is allowed to distribute your work without permission, and you grant that permission by including a license that says what people are allowed to do with your work.  Those rules are binding on others because they have no rights except what you grant through the license, but they're not binding on you, the author, because you already have the right (the copyright) to distribute your work however you want.  You're not relying on someone else granting you permission (a license) to distribute your own work, so you can include any restrictions you want in the license you grant to others.

(This only applies to the original author, though.  If you adopt a mod that someone else made, you have to abide by the license granted by the original author.)