policy: add Rule 5 — games and interactive entertainment are AGPL-3.0 - #644
Merged
Conversation
Owner ruling 2026-08-26. Projects that are PLAYED rather than BUILT UPON are AGPL-3.0-or-later for code, CC-BY-SA-4.0 for prose. Rationale in the owner's terms: if a thing is made to help the world practically it is MPL-2.0, so it can spread with minimal friction; if it is a game it is AGPL, because the intent is not adoption by other builders and AGPL S13 is the only clause in the family that reaches a hosted deployment. Games are the category most likely to be run as a service rather than distributed, so Rule 1's distribution-triggered copyleft is never reached. This BROADENS Rule 3 from a relationship test (co-developed with Joshua) to a subject-matter test (is it a game). Rule 3a is unchanged: owner-only components inside an AGPL work stay MPL-2.0. Why it had to be written down: chronicles-of-slavia and 688-attack-hub were already AGPL but appeared in no rule's named list, so by the previous text they read as DRIFT -- and sweep #40 did in fact flatten two AGPL games back toward the default. A rule that exists only as an intention gets 'corrected' by the next automated pass. Members table records the 8 already-AGPL, the 4 to flip (sr71-blackglider, proof-of-work, road-skate, megadog) and paint-type, whose root LICENSE is not machine-readable and needs verifying. Explicitly NOT in Rule 5, both owner-ruled 2026-08-26: * knot-rider -- despite the name, an exploration of knots, not a game * project-ovine -- a herding game that is a PROVING GROUND for the enaction engine; the game is the test harness, not the product. Not yet ruled either way; stays MPL until it is. The section states its own execution constraint: per A2 the flips are manual, per-file, owner-only. This records WHAT changes and WHY it is correct; it does not authorise an automated sweep, and a name in the table must never be read as one. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
|
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment
1 participant
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.This suggestion is invalid because no changes were made to the code.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is closed.Suggestions cannot be applied while viewing a subset of changes.Only one suggestion per line can be applied in a batch.Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.Applying suggestions on deleted lines is not supported.You must change the existing code in this line in order to create a valid suggestion.Outdated suggestions cannot be applied.This suggestion has been applied or marked resolved.Suggestions cannot be applied from pending reviews.Suggestions cannot be applied on multi-line comments.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is queued to merge.Suggestion cannot be applied right now. Please check back later.
Owner ruling 2026-08-26. Projects that are played rather than built upon are
AGPL-3.0-or-laterfor code,CC-BY-SA-4.0for prose.Rationale, in the owner's terms
That is coherent rather than arbitrary: MPL's copyleft triggers on distribution, and games are the category most likely to be run as a hosted service rather than shipped as a copy — so Rule 1's copyleft is never reached. AGPL §13 is the only clause in the family that closes that gap.
This broadens Rule 3
Rule 3a is unchanged: owner-only components inside an AGPL work stay MPL-2.0.
Why it had to be written down before anything is flipped
chronicles-of-slaviaand688-attack-hubare already AGPL but appear in no rule's named list — so under the previous text they read as drift. Sweep #40 did in fact flatten two AGPL games back toward the default once already.A rule that exists only as an intention gets "corrected" by the next automated pass. This PR is what makes the ruling survive.
Members
Already AGPL (verified against each root LICENSE):
chronicles-of-slavia,688-attack-hub,IDApTIK,airborne-submarine-squadron,f117a-stealth-glider,f19-stealth-glider,the-nash-equilibriumTo flip (currently MPL):
sr71-blackglider,proof-of-work,road-skate,megadogNeeds verifying:
paint-type— Rule 3 names it AGPL but its rootLICENSEis not machine-readableExplicitly NOT in Rule 5
knot-rider— owner ruling: despite the name, an exploration of knots, not a game. Stays MPL-2.0.project-ovine— a herding game that exists as a proving ground for the enaction engine. The game is the test harness, not the product. Not yet ruled; stays MPL until it is.Per A2 — "No automated or bulk SPDX/licence change (sed sweep, script, agent pass) on any estate repo, ever" — the four flips are manual, per-file, owner-only.
This section records what should change and why it is correct. The presence of a repo name in the members table must never be read as authorisation to script it. The section says so in its own text, so a future agent reading only the table cannot mistake it.
🤖 Generated with Claude Code