Packaging for Fedora / non-free graphics

[Midar]

Hi!

I recently wanted to add ft2-clone to Fedora, and it was pointed out to me (and I indeed missed that) that ft2-clone includes some non-free graphics unlike pt2-clone:

https://github.com/8bitbubsy/ft2-clone/blob/master/src/gfxdata/bmp/LICENSE.txt

This raises several questions:

• From the LICENSE.txt, it is unclear which file is under which license. Is it that only "ft2AboutLogo.bmp" and "midiLogo.bmp" are under the same license, or what files are those "the rest of the graphics"?
• Were there any attempts to convince the original author to release under a different license?
• If the original author agrees to release under a different license, would you agree to release your changes under a different license, too?
• Would you consider it acceptable to swap these graphics with different, free graphics?

Thanks.

[8bitbubsy]

All the graphics is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0, by an agreement with the designer of the FT2 graphics (Magnus/Vogue). I don't have contact with him anymore, so I can't just change the license. I thought it was a permissive license to begin with, but the truth is that I know very little about all the licensing stuff.

ft2AboutLogo.bmp and midiLogo.bmp were created by me (though obviously inspired by their original logos), so they can go under the same license as the code (BSD 3-clause).

Replacing the graphics is not feasible.

[8bitbubsy]

I updated src/gfxdata/bmp/LICENSE.txt to make it slightly more clear. It's quite annoying that it has multiple licenses, but I think it has to stay this way for now.

[Midar]

I think the problem that makes this "not open source" is the restriction to not allow commercial use. And it's also quite unclear what this would mean exactly, here. Like, can I not use FT2 then if I sell my music? That's technically commercial use.

I will try to find some way to contact him and ask, if you don't object to it.

[8bitbubsy]

If I remember correctly, he stated that it was ok for me to use his graphics as long as it wasn't used commercially (no money involved), and then we later agreed on the CC license. The reason for this is that I was technically infringing copyright by using his copyrighted graphics to begin with, and I wanted to solve that problem.

You can contact him if you like, but I can't really give you his contact details.

[jube]

Why is replacing the graphics not feasible? With the good specifications, it would be possible to create simple graphics. Even for the font, using a free font to create the font atlas would not be very difficult. Is there something I don't see?

[8bitbubsy]

It's possible, but everything is hardcoded to work with the exact graphics it has... It might require quite a bit of code changing too.

The following graphics has to be redone:

• All the fonts (there's quite a few font sets actually)
• Two FT2 logo badges in the main screen
• Two Vogue/Mr.H badges in the main screen
• Nibbles logo
• 'About screen' logo
• Piano graphics in Instr. Ed.
• Vibrato waveform graphics in Instr. Ed. (not sure if needed)
• The diamond-shaped radio button graphics (not sure if needed)
• The checkbox icons (tick, and sharp/flat icon)
• Scope graphics (all the scaled X'es for mute, and the 'rec.' text)
• All the mouse cursors and their animations
• Loop-pin graphics
• Possibly all the Nibbles stages would have to be redone too, since they are colored bitmaps, basically. Or maybe you could convert it to data and not store the graphics in the code base.
• Program icon (since it has no license, at least not right now)

Not only is this very time consuming, but it would also take away the authentic feel from the clone. This may sound like defeatism, but I'm trying to be realistic. If all of this sounds feasible to you, then I won't try to demotivate you any further. :)

[jube]

I also like the "authentic feel". But I would like ft2-clone in my Linux distribution (not Fedora, Debian, but same problems). I think that something can be done. Here would be my plan:

• for fonts, look at free bitmap fonts (e.g. on DaFont) and recreate the atlases with these free fonts.
• for logos: make very simple logos (they are not very important)
• for cursors: make alternative cursors (not very important to keep the ugly cursors)
• for nibbles: make empty stages (more complex stages can be recreated later)
• for buttons and checboxes: make alternative ones (not so difficult)
• other graphics: create alternative ones (the most important is the piano I think)

If I have some time, I will try something. Can you keep this bug open?

[8bitbubsy]

I'll keep this open, but you'll have to implement this in your own fork, I'm not going to include alternative graphics in the FT2 clone.

[jube]

No problem, I am totally OK with that, it was my intention. I like the clone as it is, I compile it myself on my machine. But I also understand the issues of Linux distributions and they are different issues that should be solved somewhere else. I want the bug to remain open so that if other package maintainers come here, they can share the effort. And maybe I will share a repository address when I create one (with enough code).

[alexmyczko]

I also like the "authentic feel". But I would like ft2-clone in my Linux distribution (not Fedora, Debian, but same problems). I think that something can be done. Here would be my plan:

• for fonts, look at free bitmap fonts (e.g. on DaFont) and recreate the atlases with these free fonts.
• for logos: make very simple logos (they are not very important)
• for cursors: make alternative cursors (not very important to keep the ugly cursors)
• for nibbles: make empty stages (more complex stages can be recreated later)
• for buttons and checboxes: make alternative ones (not so difficult)
• other graphics: create alternative ones (the most important is the piano I think)

If I have some time, I will try something. Can you keep this bug open?

you are aware it's in debian already, with still the wrong name fasttracker2 in non-free?

[MetalMaxMX]

No problem, I am totally OK with that, it was my intention. I like the clone as it is, I compile it myself on my machine. But I also understand the issues of Linux distributions and they are different issues that should be solved somewhere else. I want the bug to remain open so that if other package maintainers come here, they can share the effort. And maybe I will share a repository address when I create one (with enough code).

Any progress or updates on that 'I will try something' you were planning to do?

[jube]

No progress or updates, sorry. Let me know if you start something.