Added license

[gentlegiantJGC]

This licence allows use, modification and redistribution of our code provided that it is for non-commercial purposes and does not compete with Amulet-Team.

[gentlegiantJGC]

Hello contributors to Amulet Core.
We have finally assembled the licence terms for Amulet and want to make you aware of these changes.
The licence terms can be viewed in the files changed section of this pull request.

We are assuming that any contributions made by anyone outside Amulet-Team before signing the Contributor Licence Agreement were made under the terms of the MIT licence.
This means that anyone is able to use and relicense your contributions without having to notify you.
If you have any objections to this please respond below and we will look into removing your contributions.

We will merge this licence on or after 3rd November 2022 to give you a chance to respond if you so wish.

@gentlegiantJGC, @Podshot, @naor2013, @BluCodeGH, @freundTech, @ezfe, @mikelei8291, @lizelive, @architectdrone, @danielchalmers, @MrPingouinMC

[freundTech]

While I don't approve of changing the project to a proprietary license, I made my contributions under the MIT license and won't stop anyone from using them in accordance with it (you don't have to remove my contributions, as long as give proper credit in accordance to the MIT license).

Have you thought about dual-licensing like for example QT instead? (GPL or similar for everyone, more rights for the Amulet team).
That would still make the project open source, keep most commercial users away (they are scared of GPL 😉 ), while also allowing the amulet team to use the code under a more permissive license.

[gentlegiantJGC]

Have you thought about dual-licensing

We have considered the GPL but we have invested a lot into the project and did not feel like it gave us enough protection for that investment.

If we stop developing it for some reason I am happy for it to default to the GPL.

[MestreLion]

It's really unfortunate the team chose a non-standard, custom license that effectively makes this project proprietary.

Not having a standard license such as MIT, BSD or GPL is bad for the project and for the community as a whole:

• This project will not be able to pull code from any copy left GPL project, a large share in Minecraft community, including mine.
• No open-source MIT or BSD project, the vast majority, will be able to pull code from you
• No linux distribution will be allowed to package it
• Contributors will be very hesitant to send code given this status

[lizelive]

consider using AGPL. it is a very powerful licence.

[MestreLion]

consider using AGPL. it is a very powerful licence.

It is, but its intended purpose is for online server software, such as web services, websites, etc. For a standalone software/library such as Amulet, the most suited equivalent license would the GPL (or LGPL for libraries), all of which allow additional clauses, a family which I truly recommended for Amulet

[bekaertruben]

No linux distribution will be allowed to package it

Something like the AUR is fine, but it does mean that no distro can distribute executables.
Seeing as there is currently no licence at all, we technically couldn't before, either...

[ProNoob135]

Have you thought about dual-licensing

We have considered the GPL but we have invested a lot into the project and did not feel like it gave us enough protection for that investment.

If we stop developing it for some reason I am happy for it to default to the GPL.

What is your intended return on investment when it comes to the project?

[thewanderingtraderm]

Have you thought about dual-licensing

We have considered the GPL but we have invested a lot into the project and did not feel like it gave us enough protection for that investment.
If we stop developing it for some reason I am happy for it to default to the GPL.

What is your intended return on investment when it comes to the project?

Money 🤑🤑💰💰

[zefr0x]

Have you thought about dual-licensing

We have considered the GPL but we have invested a lot into the project and did not feel like it gave us enough protection for that investment.
If we stop developing it for some reason I am happy for it to default to the GPL.

What is your intended return on investment when it comes to the project?

Money 🤑🤑💰💰

I don't see dual licensing conflicting with this intent. See https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/licensing.html as an example.
I would also suggest providing prebuilt and easily installable packages of your software in Microsoft Store in Windows for a paid fee (This doesn't conflict with the GPLv3, you can profit this way as long as the source code is available).

You can release the software under GPLv3 for non-commercial use and have a separate custom license for commercial use (this is the same as this proposed custom license, AFAIK). This way you will get the benefits of both worlds for being free and open source software with a well-known license and being proprietary software, otherwise I believe it will stimulate creativity for non-commercial uses (at least in the long term).

Anyway, if the team is not convinced by that, it is what it is. However, I would like to see a license as soon as possible to be able to package this great software.

If we stop developing it for some reason I am happy for it to default to the GPL.

Legally speaking, this will not happen unless it was defined in the license.

I would like to see a strong copyleft license as a default fallback (e.g. AGPLv3), to keep the project as open source as possible in the long term.

It is, but its intended purpose is for online server software, such as web services, websites, etc. For a standalone software/library such as Amulet, the most suited equivalent license would the GPL (or LGPL for libraries), all of which allow additional clauses, a family which I truly recommended for Amulet

AGPLv3 is an extension to GPLv3 with extra statements to consider network services as distribution of the software.
In this case, Amulet-Core can be used to build an API or a web application, so AGPLv3 is a great choice.

[gentlegiantJGC]

GPLv3 for non-commercial use

The GPL family of licences do not allow restrictive additional terms.

See section 7 of the GPL

If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice
stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is
a further restriction, you may remove that term.

[gentlegiantJGC]

Money 🤑🤑💰💰

Developing software takes time which costs money.
I would love a bottomless money pit to pay my bills but that is not how the world works.
So far Pathway Studios have been funding the project for which I am very grateful but they don't want to fund it forever.

What is your intended return on investment when it comes to the project?

Personaly I want to make enough to continue developing the application and libraries into the future.

---

I see our main funding source being donations/purchases from users of our application which in turn pays for development of our libraries.

Our main worry with open source licences is that they would enable competing applications built on our libraries which would undermine that funding source.
This is the reason for the non-compete clause in this licence. We want to be as close to open source as possible but in a way that does not hinder our funding sources.

If we could guarantee sufficient funding into the future I would have no issue reconsidering an open source licence.
You can sponsor us here if you want to see that dream become a reality
https://github.com/sponsors/Amulet-Team