Does this mean that any GPL project could reuse source code from this game, under the logic that it all inherently must be GPL licensed?
I'm pretty sure the answer is "no", but I'd like to know why, it makes logical sense...
I'm pretty sure the answer is "no", but I'd like to know why, it makes logical sense...
Now the makers of this game and the copyright holder for the GPL work might end up reaching a settlement where the game engine is released under the GPL. (I know of one case of this happening: a Japanese visual novel producer, Leaf, released their engine as used in several games e.g. Kusari . As a result of this there's an open-source engine that you can use to play those games on linux). Equally they might end up reaching a different settlement that involves e.g. withdrawing the game from distribution (this happened with the Wii ports of some classic SCUMM games - they used ScummVM in violation of its license, but could not release their code under the GPL without violating the conditions of the Nintendo API they were using).
No, this only means that the game developers are violating the copyright of the copied code. The GPL is not "viral"; including code under the GPL in a project without following the GPL only means that the GPL doesn't apply to it anymore ("[...] and will automatically terminate your rights under this License"). Since there's no longer any license allowing it, the default restrictions of copyright apply, and the result cannot be distributed without the permission of whoever holds the copyright to that piece of code under the GPL.
I believe the answer would be "no". Essentially, the owners/holders of the copyright could, in theory, reach an agreement that would permit the publisher to keep publishing the game under a commercial license. That is, just because the code was licensed to you under the GPL (or available to you under that license), that doesn't mean that it had to be that way for everybody if the copyright holders struck some other deal.
Of course, here, the copyright holder is … everyone who has made changes to the kernel? Significant changes¹ to the kernel? (And see a court for the definition of "significant"?) IDK. For proprietary stuff owned by a single entity it is more straight-forward, but the very nature of FOSS makes this more interesting.
I wonder if it would only require those that worker on that file? (Can it be separated from the rest of the project? Again, IDK, ask a real lawyer!) At least that might be a shorter list of authors, and presumably you only need to involve those up to the point where the code was copied.
¹I say significant because I believe that "significant changes" is what would cause the work to become a "derivative" work, and that person to be the author of that derivative work. But in Oracle v Google, rangeCheck was sufficient for a copyright violation despite being a "trivial" function to most of us, so the bar seems pretty low?
Note that some FOSS gets around the problem of multiple owners by requiring an attribution (e.g. GNU).
> Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, _to give any third party_, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange
The company accepts the licence by using the code (or don't accept it, in which case it's copyright infringement), so they must offer it to any one.
A person or company that violated the GPL would void the permission granted to them by violating the license and would be liable for having done so. But it would take a court ruling to decide what that means for the parties involved.
For example, the court might give the violating party the choice to either release source, OR to keep the source closed but to financially compensate the copyright holder(s) of the code that they violated the license for. For example. Another possible outcome could be that they could say that the violating party is given the choice between releasing the source OR recall the product and financially compensate the copyright holder(s) of the code that they violated the license for.
Like I said though, IANAL.
- negotiate a license,
- pay damages,
- some other remedy, OR
- nothing at all, if nobody with standing (meaning an author of decides to sue.
This last option is by far the most likely.