Re: World Chess Computer Champion?
Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 12:30 am
As soon as an author stamps 'GPL' on his code, he basically gives up any form of control over what that code can be used for (as long as it remains open). I would say that includes (from a legal perspective) the right to refuse permission to enter it in a WCCC (or any other tourney). So there is no 'right of first refusal'.bob wrote:The issue I was talking about is not with the crafty license, but with a perfectly "legal" derivative of Crafty (pretend the EULA does not exist and it is GPL). The ICGA maintains a no-derivative rule. So which gets first right of refusal, original or derivative? I don't want N copies of stockfish in a single event any more or less than I don't want N copies of ippolit or another open-source program.
If that is not what the author wants, he should think twice before stamping his code with 'GPL'. I am sure that one can easily design a 'copy-left'-type license that virally attaches the condition 'no entry in official tournaments' to the published code or even 'whatever code you add to this and modifications you make to this, you will have to pubish the source, and Mr XXX will then will have the exclusive right to enter it in any World Championship'. If the original author wants to keep that right, he should use such a license, not a plain GPL.
Consider a case where a GPL'ed project has a minor contributor that is not the original author. Would it be reasonable to grant that contributor the 'right of refusal'? The GPL is not designed to make any distinction in the rights of various contributors, based on how much they contributed. So I think the only logical interpretation is that no contributer has that right.
Only rules imposed by the tourney organizers themselves can resolve this. And there seems little reason to go contrary to the law here. The only right that the copyright holders retain over GPL'ed code is to enforce that the full source of any program that includes it remains open. Everything else they gave up. For public domain they did not even keep that right, and gave up everything.
So I would say, if you GPL'ed Crafty, and Rybka turned out to be a Crafty derivative... Tough luck for you. You would have to play a qualifier against Rybka. Fortunately you were wise enough not to put yourself in that position.