Ambiguous Licensing for Precomputed Atmospheric Scattering

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0 comments, last by FRex 9 years, 7 months ago

Hi All,

A bit of a curiosity, I am fascinated by this subject and paper:

http://hal.inria.fr/docs/00/28/87/58/PDF/article.pdf

I have a copy of the shaders for the technique and they all say this:

/**
* Precomputed Atmospheric Scattering
* Copyright (c) 2008 INRIA
* All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
* are met:
* 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
* documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* 3. Neither the name of the copyright holders nor the names of its
* contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
* this software without specific prior written permission.
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
* AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
* IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
* ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
* LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
* CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
* SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
* INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
* CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
* ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF
* THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
*/
/**
* Author: Eric Bruneton
*/
I really want to integrate this technique into my game but there is no qualification about commercial use of this shader. From a legal stand point, do I have any right to use it within a game without seeking permission from INRIA? I cannot find anything on licensing it. Am I doing my bit if I add this to my license and add it digitally to an about page for the game along with including it in the distributed source?
Thanks,
EO
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Yes, you can use it for any purpose. This is '3 Clause BSD' aka 'New BSD'. It's certified by OSI and FSF and not copyleft so it's generally regarded as safe, permissive and non viral.

See links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses#3-clause_license_.28.22Revised_BSD_License.22.2C_.22New_BSD_License.22.2C_or_.22Modified_BSD_License.22.29

http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause

Of course, IANAL, but there is extremely little risk in using code under that license since it's generally accepted and known open source license.

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