A few questions about submiting maps

[stjartmunnen]

Im converting one of my q3 maps to oa and I was wondering if the e7 textures included in the pk4-textures are the only ones that are GPL'd or is the whole texture pack ok?

screens from that map:

http://www.henrikbjork.se/images/leveldesign/q3/anodm3/large/silip2.jpg
http://www.henrikbjork.se/images/leveldesign/q3/anodm3/large/silip4.jpg
http://www.henrikbjork.se/images/leveldesign/q3/anodm3/large/silip6.jpg

[Blaenk]

Sorry, what? Everything in pk4-textures is GPL'd as far as I know, we're talking about OA's right? You could also create your own textures, GPL them, and use them, but I don't think that's what you meant?

[stjartmunnen]

What I meant was...the other textures from that original pack ,evillair 7, which are not included in the pk3, are they GPLd?
It just seemed odd to me thar Yves would release some of the textures in a set and not all of them. For example, there is only two e8 textures included.

oh...are those the textures that where used in Nexuiz? Is that why?

[fromhell]

yeah, i'm picky about licenses and because of that I only use the evillair textures that come from Nexuiz, and not off evillair's own site.

[Tribaal]

Hum well, I really like playing OA, and theses maps look gorgeous.

Unfortunately I'm not skilled enough to make textures myself, but I happend to pay for the games I play. Would it be possible to actually buy rights to textures and stuff and then make them GPL? Like buying some textures from an artist? Most people doing textures for quake3 based games don't usually make money off their work I'd guess, so it might be nice for them to get this extra buck easily, plus their name(s) in the source code of course?

Is this even legally feasible (to buy off their intellectual property, and then to liscence it under GPL)? Is this morally acceptable for the project / the FOSS movement in general? How much a texture cost? I guess it shouldn't be too expensive.. like what, 40 dollars? Am I underestimating this? Overestimating?
Would textures be a good start, or if the idea is good, should we/I start buy buying out other things instead (like models, maps, whatever)?

I lack the skill but I'd be willing to spare some money

- trib'

[Blaenk]

I have no idea of whether or not that will work but if it does that'd be very great.

[Amphetamine]

It is possible to buy IP and then release it under the GPL, this is what happened with Blender. However, I should imagine that buying a pack of textures from an artist will be a lot like buy a cd of samples to use in music production, in as much as you have the right to use them in whatever comercial/non-comercial project you see fit, but not to relicense them directly yourself. Also, since a number of textures are created from licensed source material (There are books and discs of boarders, patterns, etc) that you can buy the rights to use in your own work, but you would be prohibited from re-licensing the source materials since you are not the owner, thus making them incompatible with the GPL too. Unfortunately it's the re-distribution of source materials and the licensing for comercial purposes that's going to cause huge headaches trying to submit anything to this project officially.

[fromhell]

Isn't that one of the big messups behind the Golgotha public domain release? They have alot of stock sounds used (mostly from Sound General series) which they relicensed as "public domain". I'm surprised they didn't go after them, though I feel sad for those projects who use its sounds believing it is actually public domain

[Tribaal]

Hum yeah I understand the problem...
So now, how would I go about creating textures myself? I'm a coder, definately not an artist, but I'm always up for a challenge.
Is there some kind of list of what textures would be needed by mappers?

Just trying to help, I like to play, so I might as well contribute

- trib'

[Eli]

Hey that was my post on mapcenter, cool.  Those maps are good though, they should totally be included in a full release of openarena, as it really needs maps.