licensing FLAR

[Guidewire]

So,

Does anyone have a good idea how the license works with FLARToolKit?

If you want to do semi commercial stuff with it. Have many of you
gotten to that stage yet? Any thoughts one what's ok without a
license?

[Blair MacIntyre]

ARToolkworks is licensing it (they hold the original license for the
ARToolkit).

I imagine you can use the GPL one for commercial activities, as long
as you comply with the license, which means giving away all your
source with your product!

[Guidewire]

So, ok....when you say ALL do you mean all of the FLARToolKit source
(if I've made alterations to that code or not)....or its my
application as well that is used along with papervision, FLAR, and any
other source? Models don't count as source, right? I'm feeling like
there is some line of protection of something that you've created on
top of FLARToolKit/ARToolKit

So for example if I've created my own unique modeling engine or game
engine or something. I would have to provide all of that code if I
don't pay the license for FLARToolkit?

On Mar 26, 10:53 am, Blair MacIntyre <blair.macint...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[eric socolofsky]

my understanding (correct me if i'm wrong) is that you have to link to
the FLARToolkit source, not to your own source. that's how the GE
folks did it.

ah. from http://www.libspark.org/wiki/saqoosha/FLARToolKit/en :

"The license

FLARToolkit is free to use for non-commercial applications. It is
based on the ARToolKit library under the GPL license and so the source
code for any FLARToolKit applications that are made needs to be made
available to the Spark Project.

If you are interested in developing a commercial application using
FLARToolKit then you should contact ARToolWorks (in...@artoolworks.com)
for a commercial license. In this case you will not have to make your
source code available. "

so you have to upload your source to the libspark repo, apparently.
which means the GE source should be up there somewhere? i'd like to
take a look at that!

-e

[eric socolofsky]

actually, correction:

you should open-source all of the code for any application you build
with FLARToolkit.

http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/license.html
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html#SEC1

On Mar 26, 2009, at 10:16 AM, Guidewire wrote:

[Alejandro González]

As I understand it you must open source EVERYTHING.  your code, your assets, etc.  Eventually you might/will find some sort of license incompatibility since you cannot open source Flash or 3dsmax, or such...unless you only use open source tools.

Best,

Alejandro González

alejandro...@zerofractal.com

Studio Director

Zerofractal Studio - Bogotá

www.zerofractal.com

Office:  +57 (1) 540 8423 (4) ext 105

Mobile:  +57 (316) 233 1805

USA:  +1 (347) 414-9118

skype:  zerofractal

iChat:  zerof...@me.com

Cr 11 No 70 - 49

Bogotá, Distrito Capital

Colombia

[Blair MacIntyre]

I hadn't really thought about the assets before; but, at some level
it would make sense.

You do NOT need to open source things you cannot get the source for
(e.g., Flash); that's absurd. For example, if you build a GPL'd
plugin for photoshop, you can't be expected to release photoshop.
Flash is more of an environment or tool; having to open source it
would be equivalent to saying you can't build GPL software on Windows
or OSX because you can't open source the OS.

That said, you CAN'T "fake" things, for example by isolating your code
from GPL'd code by putting the GPL'd in a library or plugin; this is
explicitly forbidden and was one of the reasons the LGPL was created.

The way I think of it is this:
- If I write code that uses or calls GPL'd code, all my code must be
open sourced (if I want to make the program available in any form)
- If I _call_ other libraries, I don't need to make them open
sourced. But, I can't skirt the GPL by moving my code into "a library".

In the end, this only matters if someone chooses to sue you over it.

[Blair MacIntyre]

> So, ok....when you say ALL do you mean all of the FLARToolKit source
> (if I've made alterations to that code or not)....or its my
> application as well that is used along with papervision, FLAR, and any
> other source? Models don't count as source, right? I'm feeling like
> there is some line of protection of something that you've created on
> top of FLARToolKit/ARToolKit
>
> So for example if I've created my own unique modeling engine or game
> engine or something. I would have to provide all of that code if I
> don't pay the license for FLARToolkit?

Yes, exactly.

The point of the GPL is to force people to give away their source.
The GPL was created by open source fanatics who believe "software
should be free". So, there is NO LINE OF PROTECTION for something
you've created. From the viewpoint of those who created the GPL, you
are supposed to be giving away EVERYTHING so that we can all learn and
build on top of things.

There is no notion of people making money by owning things and
charging other for them in the GPL. :)

[eric socolofsky]

great, thanks for the explanation, blair. very helpful.

so. that said, does anyone know how to access the GE augmented
reality source? they link to the FLARToolkit but do not provide their
own source. unless they worked out some other agreement, the
commercial ARToolkit license wasn't available when they launched, so
the source *should* be publicly available, right?

unless they retroactively purchased a commercial license.

-e

[Saqoosha]

HI eric,

I requested to North Kingdom (developer of that site) to provide the
source code, and I got it.
GPL doesn't require to link the source code, but developer must
provide if someone request.

If you want the source code, please contact to North Kingdom.
http://www.northkingdom.com/

--
Saqoosha
s...@saqoosha.net
http://saqoosha.net/

[makc]

this is interesting, in fact saqoosha wrote that artoolworks offers
license for flartoolkit, http://saqoosha.net/en/2009/02/21/1710/

bu he gave no details. since flartoolkit was created under gpl, there
is no way for artoolworks to "extend" commercial license to it
automatically. which means saqoosha should have received limited
license which would allow him, in his turn, to license it back to
artoolworks.

> > license?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Almog]

Hi everybody I have been talking to Mark Billinghurst over at
artoolworks
This is the answer that I got from him regrading the licensing
FlarToolKit and ArtToolKit

///This is the answer which I received from Mark please contact him
for information mark.bil...@artoolworks.com
Our best license for FLARToolKit allows multi-project/application
license
which allows you to develop as many different commercial
projects/applications as you want. This is $6495 USD/year.

Alternately, if you think you'll be using FLARToolKit in only one
commercial application, you can get a single project license for just
$1295.

With both these license types, the results can be deployed on an
unlimited
number of publicly-accessible websites for as long as desired. If
ongoing
revenue is generated from the users of FLARToolKit (e.g. its bundled
with
a paid product, or used as part of a chargeable service) then an
additional 5% royalty is payable on that revenue. But for most
promotional
applications, there won't need to be any royalty paid.

Of course, ARToolKit v2.x and FLARToolKit are also available under the
GPL
license for free, but you have to give the full source code of your
Flash
application to anyone who wants it.

We are working on putting a list of clients onto our website. Look for
the
list and linked source code examples in the coming weeks.

On Mar 27, 7:50 pm, makc <makc.the.gr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> this is interesting, in fact saqoosha wrote that artoolworks offers

> license for flartoolkit,http://saqoosha.net/en/2009/02/21/1710/

[eric socolofsky]

also, i got in touch with north kingdom. they bought a single-product
license, so their source is not available.

[MarkB]

Hi Everyone,

On behalf of ARToolworks I am happy to answer any questions you have
about the FLARToolKit licensing.

Just in brief, we came to an agreement with Saqoosha and FLARToolKit/
NyARToolKit developers earlier this year to enable ARToolworks to
offer commercial licenses to FLARToolKit and NyARToolKit and return
revenue back to the original ldevelopers.

So we are trying to support a dual license model where anyone who
wants to can download and use the software under the GPL license
(which requires them to provide the source code of their application)
or gain a commercial license for applications that they don't want to
share. This should hopefully make the technology available to
everyone, while enabling companies to protect their applications and
provide revenue back to the original developers.

In terms of how to make the GPL code available, I really like what
Special Movies did on their website: http://specialmoves.com/xmas/

See the credits link - they provide a download link to both the
FLARToolKit and Papervision libraries and also to all the source code
of their application. If it was up to me this is how I would like
people to share the GPL version as it makes it easy to understand how
the application was built.

If you have more questions, feel free to ask here or email me at
mark.billinghurst at artoolworks.com

I'd also love to hear suggestions about how ARToolworks could better
support the FLARToolKit community.

Regards
Mark

Mark Billinghurst
ARToolworks
mark.billinghurst at artoolworks.com
http://www.artoolworks.com/

[DaveVidG]

I was wondering how did you request it?

On 27 mrt, 02:19, Saqoosha <s...@saqoosha.net> wrote:
> HI eric,
>
> I requested to North Kingdom (developer of that site) to provide the
> source code, and I got it.
> GPL doesn't require to link the source code, but developer must
> provide if someone request.
>
> If you want the source code, please contact to North Kingdom.http://www.northkingdom.com/
>
> --
> Saqoosha

> s...@saqoosha.nethttp://saqoosha.net/

[eric socolofsky]

they purchased a single license, and therefore do not have to share
their code.
i asked them directly, and this is the response i received.
i believe they purchased their license after they shared their code
with saqoosha, though am not sure.
-eric

[Guidewire]

and....to speculate.....maybe it was a nice act to let Saqoosha have
the code because he did all/most of the FLARToolKit work.