LÖVE

So I'm working towards releasing my first game outside of the forums, and I have some questions about licensing.

First of all how does one license code? Do i just add the license to the top if the files? Or is there more to it?

Second. Does anyone know of a license that basically says you can do whatever with the code as long as you don't release it under your name

Also How important is licensing your code? It's not like I spent years developing this game so even if someone does Rip it off, I wouldn't be that mad.

And finally, the game in question is a snake clone. Is it even legal to license something like that?

Just to mention that this should help. Tremendously: choosealicense.

You can compile your code to Lua bytecode if you don't want anybody to read or modify it (I usually do it to hide how terrible my code is!)
Generally, you don't need to worry about somebody copying your code for such a specific game.
From what I've noticed, most people usually copy/reuse code that does "generic" things.
Are you planning to sell the game?

I'm not trying to hide my code, It's gonna be completely open source. If nothing else, i figured a license would make it look more legit. I'm planning on releasing it on itch.io or something similar for free.

Licensing code is usually done to allow/disallow the reuse of libs.
I think you're talking about an EULA (End-user license agreement).
Also, if your game has graphics/sound effects or other assets these need to be addressed in addition to the code.

-snip-

You should (must!) at least preserve the copyrights - after all you have spent your time and knowledge for creating something - don't lose to much pressure and attention on that.

veethree wrote:Second. Does anyone know of a license that basically says you can do whatever with the code as long as you don't release it under your name

There are basically two possibilies there:
1- They have to put your name in the credits. Then you're probably going for MIT or BSD for the code, be sure to research on them; and CC-by for the art.
2- They can make derivatives and call it their own, but they can't say they made the original work. A license for that is Zlib, the one LÖVE itself uses (that is, it's a license that's meant for code). I can distribute my game, tell everyone it's my game, but if people ask if I made it from scratch, I can't say I did. Something like that. I think (but not sure) that a good similar license for the artwork would be CC0, as you give up moral rights as much as possible, which pretty much means the same as the Zlib, people can do whatever they want with your work, but not claim the original as being their own work.

There's that theorical distinction between licences that are appropriate for code and the ones appropriate for art (graphics, sounds), but a lot of people just don't care, and licence the whole thing under some MIT or CC.

veethree wrote:And finally, the game in question is a snake clone. Is it even legal to license something like that?

Hm, you're making a new code, so there's no copyright infringement there. If you made an exact copy of the mechanics, without adding anything new, then yeah, I guess there's some infringement. Not that anyone cares, though, just look up "snake" in the Android store.

And don't forget to check the license on any libs that you used. Then you should distributewith the game a license file, with the license for your code and exceptions for whatever libs may need it.

(End-user license agreement)

can someone explain that part???

ivan wrote:You can compile your code to Lua bytecode if you don't want anybody to read or modify it (I usually do it to hide how terrible my code is!)

How?