Mix GPL content with commercial stuff

[kung foo man]

Yo all, I'm working for some months now on ioquake3, so it works inside the browser (WebAssembly/emscripten/WebGL etc.)

It works all nice n shit, buuuuut.... I need content (player models). I'm a programmer, so I usually buy my stuff from asset stores (models, textures and sounds).

Now I wonder... am I allowed to make an online game with the bought assets mixed up with OpenArena GPL content? I basically got all my shit together already, but I never made animated player models. I would love to simply use Sergei and Arachna (sexy spider woman, just epic lol *Alien fan*)

Is this legal with GPL? I would love to pay some amount to the Sergei/Arachna model maker/makers aswell, so I could use it without the GPL on content implications.

Have a nice day and stuff,
kung foo man

[asmanel]

I'm not sure but I think yes

Here is the text of the GPLv2 and here is the official FAQ about it.

Obviously, you will also need to check the licenses of the other files you want to use to know what you can legally do.

[Gig]

I'm not sure, this is not an easy topic.
GPL is a "viral" license, which asks you to redistribute your work under that license, if you mix gpl content with your own strictly enough (e.g. running in the same process?). GPL is a license written for code, and AFAIK it does not clearly explain how to use assets under that license. I have not understood if you can use GPL assets in a NON-GPL program... or mix GPL and NON-GPL assets in the same program. Just to be sure, OA uses GPL for everything.
GPL allows you to sell your software (giving that your customers are allowed to easily get the "sources", without the need to pay a second time), so in theory you may make everything GPL and still sell it, BUT probably the other assets -those you bought- do not include "sources" or a GPL-compatible license (futhermore, I don't know if you can somehow prevent third party from using your GPL program without paying you, after the first copies start appearing online... I'm not a laywer.)

About asking the authors of those two models to authorize you to include those assets in your game, or otherwise to release them under CC0 or Public Domain, that may be a possible way... IF their authors are okay with it.

I'm not sure who are their authors. Arachna is probably a model by Fromhell (the project leader, she is who does everything about OA models nowadays, maybe one of the few persons in the world still capable of creating models in MD3 format).
The wiki page about DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Sergei]Sergei mentions "Modeled, animated and skinned by enki. Voiced by Rottking."

There is also an additional skin for Arachna, called "Forlona", which is not included in OA 0.8.8 (but you can see it in the Android port), which is made by Wayuki.

[kung foo man]

Yea, I'm pretty sure that the GPL would spread over into my content aswell. The link asmanel posted also states problems with GPL fonts, which infect the actual content, so they made a special clause for that.

I tried to write enki a mail yesterday, but the mail came back with "mail not delivered duo to long inactivity of the account".

Kinda leaves me with Arachna, would be epic if I get permission to use it for some €$. Kinda lacking a "normal" soldier model then still though. Trying to make something like a soldiers vs. zombie/vampire game type first.

Funny that you say "few persons in the world still capable of creating models in MD3 format". Thats exactly my impression. I ended up the last weeks of writing my own, easier model format to get my models into ioquake3 (static, so far). Now I'm hacking it up for animated models. I don't have high expectations anymore, just wanna make something like a simple Minecraft model anymore lol. Seems quite simple to replace the vertices inside mdv->surfaces

Code:

void mdvmodel_scale_verts(mdvModel_t *mdv, float scalar) {
for (int surface_id=0; surface_id<mdv->numSurfaces; surface_id++) {
mdvSurface_t *surface = (mdvSurface_t *)mdv->surfaces + surface_id;
mdvVertex_t *vert = surface->verts;
int n = surface->numVerts * mdv->numFrames;
for (int i=0; i<n; i++) {
vert->xyz[0] *= scalar;
vert->xyz[1] *= scalar;
vert->xyz[2] *= scalar;
vert++;
}
}
}

+ updating the vao stuff.

Yea, relicensing assets to CC0 or Public Domain would be epic. New projects could bring back openarena back to live I guess. I'm preparing ioq3 so far for the web, with async content loading etc... so everybody can play simply by visiting a website. I'm working alone on this though and it needs so much work. Every public domain asset is highly welcome, since I'm not exactly rich aswell xd

[Gig]

About model format, a few years ago a guy was implementing a new "open" model format to replace MD3 and MDR... it was quite promising, but unfortunately that guy disappeared from the forum... who knows if there are the sources somewhere so someone else may continue from there... the thread was this, I think: http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=5169.0

Yea, relicensing assets to CC0 or Public Domain would be epic.

Note: I was just referring to those specific assets you mentioned, as I can guess finding every author of every asset would be almost impossible. Also, game engine and gamecode will always be tied to GPLv2+ due to idSoftware, so OpenArena cannot be a fully CC0 or PD project anyway.