Re: [pygame] Licensing

[Peter Shinners <pete@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris wrote:
> I notice LGPL is used on a lot of pygame projects.  Is that because 
> pygame itself uses LGPL?  It makes sense for pygame to use LGPL 
> because it's a huge, widely used library but it's not apparent as to 
> why the game projects themselves to use LGPL.

I've used LGPL for my games, and here's my thinking.

The games I release with Pygame are actually shipped as the source. A 
few years ago there weren't that many Pygame projects at all, so I 
wanted the game's source to be available to other game developers. I 
also was hoping that if people released their own games with enhanced 
versions of my functions I would be able to incorporate those back into 
my own game. I also wanted to be sure if someone came and changed the 
game around (aka, a shareware version) the code wouldn't be locked up 
entirely with their release.

It turns out that writing a game is usually made up of many small and 
connected parts. In hindsight I would likely just release the game as 
BSD or something. In the end, LGPL may be easier to package and release, 
since the SDL and Pygame libraries shipped with the game are already 
under LGPL?