Licenses matter
polycounter lvl 11
So, i'm really impressed by the amount of people here that feel pleasure sharing their knowledge and even their final works, ultimately targeting the improvement of others. That's really great. It's something that i'm very used to in the software development community and it's nice to see similar behavior around.
However, i feel that not many of you understand how licenses matter. In the software development community, we're pretty used to decide between licenses for the work we choose to share with the community. For example, i used to follow a rule of thumb: if it's a final product, like an application, i want it to stay free forever. Therefore, i choose the GPL. If it's a library, i want people to be able to use it anywhere, even commercial projects, as long as they credit who made it. So, i choose BSD. Or maybe i don't care about credits, so i use MIT, which is public domain.
In the art world, that rule can also be followed by making use of the amazing licenses from Creative Commons. The GPL equivalent would by CC-BY-SA, and the BSD one would be CC-BY. Licensing is very important because it protects you, your work, but it also allows the community to use your work without hassle: if someone is doing an open film, like Blender's, and they are licensing their entire movie under the CC-BY-SA, they will be able to use your rig or your character released under the CC-BY-SA, CC-BY and CC-0. Same for games or any other project.
Another thing that is important to understand is the meaning of the word "free". The english language can make you confuse in this case, because freeing your work doesn't mean making it gratis, zero cost. It means liberation, giving it freedom. Freedom to be inspected, modified and shared. So, just like open-source, what i'm talking about here is open art.
So, if you got inspired, what are you waiting for? Liberate your work! There's an amazing thread here at Polycount:
http://polycount.com/discussion/138341/the-great-3d-game-art-giveaway-thread/
And, of course, a whole website dedicated to open art:
http://opengameart.org/
However, i feel that not many of you understand how licenses matter. In the software development community, we're pretty used to decide between licenses for the work we choose to share with the community. For example, i used to follow a rule of thumb: if it's a final product, like an application, i want it to stay free forever. Therefore, i choose the GPL. If it's a library, i want people to be able to use it anywhere, even commercial projects, as long as they credit who made it. So, i choose BSD. Or maybe i don't care about credits, so i use MIT, which is public domain.
In the art world, that rule can also be followed by making use of the amazing licenses from Creative Commons. The GPL equivalent would by CC-BY-SA, and the BSD one would be CC-BY. Licensing is very important because it protects you, your work, but it also allows the community to use your work without hassle: if someone is doing an open film, like Blender's, and they are licensing their entire movie under the CC-BY-SA, they will be able to use your rig or your character released under the CC-BY-SA, CC-BY and CC-0. Same for games or any other project.
Another thing that is important to understand is the meaning of the word "free". The english language can make you confuse in this case, because freeing your work doesn't mean making it gratis, zero cost. It means liberation, giving it freedom. Freedom to be inspected, modified and shared. So, just like open-source, what i'm talking about here is open art.
So, if you got inspired, what are you waiting for? Liberate your work! There's an amazing thread here at Polycount:
http://polycount.com/discussion/138341/the-great-3d-game-art-giveaway-thread/
And, of course, a whole website dedicated to open art:
http://opengameart.org/