complying_with_licenses.rst 5.7 KB

123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990919293949596979899100101102103104105106
  1. .. _doc_complying_with_licenses:
  2. Complying with Licenses
  3. =======================
  4. What are licenses?
  5. ------------------
  6. Godot is created and distributed under the `MIT License <https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT>`_. It doesn't have a sole owner either, as every contributor that submits code to the project does it under this same license and keeps ownership of the contribution.
  7. The license is the legal requirement for you (or your company) to use and distribute the software (and derivative projects, including games made with it). Your game or project can have a different license, but it still needs to comply with the original one.
  8. Requirements
  9. ------------
  10. In the case of the MIT license, the only requirement is to include the license text somewhere in your game or derivative project.
  11. This text reads as follows:
  12. Godot Engine
  13. Copyright (c) 2007-2019 Juan Linietsky, Ariel Manzur.
  14. Copyright (c) 2014-2019 Godot Engine contributors.
  15. Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
  16. The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
  17. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
  18. Inclusion
  19. ---------
  20. The license does not specify how it has to be included, so anything is valid as long as it can be displayed under some condition. These are the most common approaches (only need to implement one of them, not all).
  21. Credits screen
  22. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  23. Include the above license text somewhere in the credits screen. It can be at the bottom after showing the rest of the credits. Most large studios use this approach with open source licenses.
  24. Licenses screen
  25. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  26. Some games have a special menu (often in the settings) to display licenses.
  27. Output log
  28. ^^^^^^^^^^
  29. Just printing the licensing text using a :ref:`print() <class_@GDScript_method_print>` function may be enough on platforms where a global output log is readable (as an example, mobile devices).
  30. Accompanying file
  31. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  32. If the game is distributed on desktop operating systems, a file containing the license can be added to the software that is installed to the user PC.
  33. Printed manual
  34. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  35. If the game includes printed manuals, license text can be included there.
  36. Third Party licenses
  37. --------------------
  38. Godot itself contains software written by `third parties <https://github.com/godotengine/godot/blob/master/COPYRIGHT.txt>`_. Most of it does not require license inclusion, but some do. Make sure to do it if you are using them. Here is a list of which ones require it:
  39. FreeType
  40. ^^^^^^^^
  41. Godot uses `FreeType <https://www.freetype.org/>`_ to render fonts. Its license requires attribution, so the following text must be included together with the Godot license:
  42. Portions of this software are copyright © <year> The FreeType Project (www.freetype.org). All rights reserved.
  43. ENet
  44. ^^^^
  45. If the project being created is a multiplayer game using the `ENet <http://enet.bespin.org/>`_ driver, ENet has similar licensing terms as Godot
  46. Copyright (c) 2002-2016 Lee Salzman
  47. Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
  48. The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
  49. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
  50. MBedTLS
  51. ^^^^^^^
  52. If the project is done with Godot 3.1 or above and it utilizes SSL (usually through HTTP requests), the `MBedTLS <https://tls.mbed.org>`_ Apache license needs to be complied by including the following text:
  53. MBedTLS is Copyright (C) 2013-2019 ARM
  54. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
  55. http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
  56. Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
  57. Keep in mind that Godot 2.x and 3.0 use `OpenSSL <https://www.openssl.org>`_ instead.