Wesnoth:Copyrights
This page contains all relevant information regarding copyright and how it applies to different categories of Wesnoth content and code. Should there ever be any contradicting information from other sources concerning Wesnoth and copyright, the information on this page takes precedence.
Contents
The Wiki
The content of the Wesnoth wiki is under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). By contributing content to the wiki, you agree for your contributions to be distributed under the GFDL.
As the project owners, with the right to issue copies of its content under dual or multiple licenses, the Wesnoth maintainers specifically grant the right to copy content from game to wiki or wiki to game, said copy acquiring only the license obligations associated with the destination.
"Content" here refers to any and all text explanations, code snippets and examples, images, and audio files that are part of the wiki.
The Battle for Wesnoth - Code Contributions
Code contributed to the Battle for Wesnoth project is licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later. This includes all code, whether it be C++, lua, WML, or any other language that is currently part of the project or is added in the future. This also includes data files, such as maps, as well as story content.
Some portions of the source code can be used under alternate license terms, whenever stated as such in the source.
The Battle for Wesnoth - Visual and Audio Contributions
All visual and audio assets are licensed under either the GNU GPL v2 or later, or the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0. While existing contributions may be under the GNU GPL v2 or later, the goal is for all future contributions to be made under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. In any case, regardless of whether a visual or audio contribution is licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later or the CC BY-SA 4.0, the person contributing the asset always retains the full rights to their own work and can continue to use it in whatever way they wish.
Additionally, unless explicitly stated otherwise, all visual and audio assets that are posted to either the Music & Sound Development forum or to the Art Contributions forum are considered as potential contributions and are automatically placed under either the GNU GPL v2 or later(prior to July 30th, 2017), or the CC BY-SA 4.0(as of July 30th, 2017).
For visual and audio assets that are licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later, we interpret "preferred form of the work for making modifications" as the modifiable form that the author chooses to provide us for the source tree.
Visual and audio assets for which you do not own the rights cannot be accepted, nor can any derivative works, nor anything that falls under fair use.
User Made Content - Code
Code uploaded to the official Wesnoth add-ons server must be licensed under a version of the GNU GPL. This includes all code, whether it be lua, WML, or any other language that is supported by Wesnoth. This also includes data files, such as maps, as well as story content. If no version of the GNU GPL is specified, all code will by default be placed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
Specifying a non-GPL license within your add-on does not prevent your code from being placed under the GNU GPL v2 or later. Code that for any reason cannot be licensed under the GNU GPL is not allowed on the add-ons server.
User Made Content - Visual and Audio Content
All visual and audio assets must be licensed under either a version of the GNU GPL or any Creative Commons license. This includes "non-Free" variations such as Non-Commercial(NC) and Non-Derivative(ND). If no version of the GNU GPL nor any Creative Commons license is specified, all visual and audio assets will by default be placed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
For visual and audio assets that are licensed under the GNU GPL, we interpret "preferred form of the work for making modifications" as the modifiable form that the author chooses to upload to the add-ons server.
For visual and audio assets that are not licensed under the GNU GPL, they must be explicitly denoted as released under a Creative Commons license in either:
- a combined toplevel file, e.g. "add-ons/My_Addon/ART_LICENSE"
- a file in the same folder as the asset with ".license" appended, e.g. "add-ons/My_Addon/images/units/axeman.png.license".
Specifying a non-GPL, non-Creative Commons license within your add-on does not prevent your visual or audio assets from being placed under the GNU GPL v2 or later. Visual and audio assets that for any reason cannot be placed under the GNU GPL or a Creative Commons license are not allowed on the add-ons server.
Additionally, add-ons which make use of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial (NC) license variant will not be able to be included in Wesnoth's iOS port, which will come with popular add-ons bundled in. This is due to the iOS port costing money to buy, which is a significant source of income for Wesnoth, and as such clearly falls under "commercial activity".