Re: Wesnoth Apple App Store GPL violation?

On 07/09/2010 09:55 PM, Rusty Russell wrote:

 Hi all,

 A friend showed me Wesnoth on the iPad.  That's great, except that it came
 via the Apple App Store.  I didn't think that was allowed under the GPL?

Hi Rusty,

Unlike the GNU Go release on the app store, which was not endorsed by the
maintainers of GNU Go, Wesnoth on the app store has been developed with
the endorsement of myself and the active Wesnoth development community.

We believed at the time that development began -- and still believe today
-- that we are acting within the GPL given the following factors:

- The full source code is released and available.
- It is entirely permissible for anyone to compile the game from source
and distribute it using their own distribution mechanism to people with an
iPhone device. There may be some barriers to distribution but these
barriers are entirely technical due to the "walled garden" nature of the
iPhone.

It should be noted that release of Wesnoth on the app store has had some
significant benefits both for the Wesnoth community and for FLOSS gaming
as a whole:

- Wesnoth has obtained significant revenue streams which have been used
to fund the development of art and other content in areas in which Wesnoth
needs improvement to compete with commercial offerings.
- FLOSS gaming has been exposed to a significant audience which might be
otherwise unaware of it.
- Other FLOSS games are now also interested in distribution on the same
platorm.

Regards,

David
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