AW: AW: AW: Jagged Alliance‏
24/08/2010
Stephan Barnickel Stephan BarnickelStephan.Barnickel@bit-Composer.com


To 'Geoffrey WHITE'
From: Stephan Barnickel (Stephan.Barnickel@bit-Composer.com)
Sent: August 24, 2010 5:44:27 AM
To: 'Geoffrey WHITE' (whiteg@sympatico.ca)


Dear Geoffrey,



We have to keep it as it is. So please do not distribute the original data-files of Jagged Alliance 2 in addition to your modifications.



We think about this possibility to release JA2 under a less restrictive open source license but first of all we have to check the legal situation in this case.



I hope you understand our point of view.



Best,



Stephan





Von: Geoffrey WHITE [mailto:whiteg@sympatico.ca]
Gesendet: Sonntag, 8. August 2010 21:58
An: stephan.barnickel@bit-composer.com
Cc: veronika.tomasevic-sanz@bit-composer.com
Betreff: RE: AW: AW: Jagged Alliance



Dear Mr. Barnickel;



I certainly appreciate bitComposer Games' interpretation of the Jagged Alliance 2 license, and will definitely do my best to keep you updated on any future mods I hear about, and/or work on!

I've been keeping the Jagged Alliance community up-to-date on our correspondence, and while all of the responses I've received about bitComposer Games' interpretation of the license are extremely positive, there is at-least one member of the community who is still worried that bitComposer Games might not keep that particular interpretation of the license later-on, and is worried about the possibility of future issues.



They would like to have bitComposer Games to add an amendment to the end of the Jagged Alliance 2 license, stating something along the lines of, "bitComposer Games is the license owner since XYZ. We fully support the modding community and approve of the distribution of the game's source and data files for non-commercial purposes."



Barring that, they would like, "some kind of an official statement from bitComposer," regarding the interpretation of the license that you just gave me.



Finally, they would also like me to publish our e-mail correspondence on the Jagged Alliance community's de-facto official Forums.



I actually believe that their requests would be the best option for the community (specifically having a license amendment, or at-least an official statement from bitComposer Games published somewhere on their website), and would appreciate it if you would agree to allow me to post this e-mail correspondence on their Forums.



Please let me know the answers to all three of these questions/suggestions as soon as possible.



I once again thank you for both your time and patience, and hope to hear from you soon.



Sincerely,

Geoffrey Michael White







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Stephan.Barnickel@bit-Composer.com
To: whiteg@sympatico.ca
CC: veronika.tomasevic-sanz@bit-composer.com
Subject: AW: AW: Jagged Alliance
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 18:13:11 +0200

Dear Geoffrey,



sorry for the late response.



We keep it as it is. Means the devs are allowed to compile their own installers for the modifications/campaigns, etc., as complete games for non-commercial purposes.



It would be great if you can keep us updated on future mods.



Best,

Stephan





Von: Geoffrey WHITE [mailto:whiteg@sympatico.ca]
Gesendet: Freitag, 6. August 2010 14:19
An: stephan.barnickel@bit-composer.com
Cc: veronika.tomasevic-sanz@bit-composer.com
Betreff: RE: AW: Jagged Alliance



Mr. Barnickel;

It has been several weeks since the last e-mail I sent you, and I still have yet to receive a response.

Please know that development on Jagged Alliance 2 by the fans is very important to us, and the questions asked of you are questions the entire community wants to hear the answers to.

We do realise that your company is working on Jagged Alliance 3, and we are very appreciative of that fact.
However, until the game is released, all we really have is our modifications to the Jagged Alliance 2 source code.

If you cannot or will not answer the previous questions, if you could be so kind as to answer the following one instead:

It appears that the license Jagged Alliance 2 was released under by Strategy First allows for binary (including data file) redistribution for non-commercial purposes.

Does bitComposer games agree with the above statement? Are the developers in the community allowed to compile their own installers for the modifications/campagains, etc., as complete games?

Please let me know at-least the answer to this question, if not the answers to the previous questions.

I thank you for your time, and patience, and hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,

Geoffrey Michael White







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: whiteg@sympatico.ca
To: stephan.barnickel@bit-composer.com
Subject: RE: AW: Jagged Alliance
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2010 05:03:40 -0400

Dear Mr. Barnickel;

I would like to apologize, as I forgot to include a link to the appropriate post(s) concerning the licensing issues. They are as follows:

JA2 Source-Code License - (a verbatim copy of the license Strategy First released Jagged Alliance 2 under),
and
Stracciatella Ramblings - (not exactly important, but if you have free-time, you can read to see more of what I've been talking about),

both of which are located at
The Bear's Pit JA Community Forums - (the defacto-official website for fans of the Jagged Alliance series, which your company now owns the rights to).

Sincerely,

Geoffrey White




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dear Mr. Barnickel;

I know Strategy First released the source code (and other software, including binary files?) for Jagged Alliance 2 under a relatively restrictive license quite a few years ago, but I was wondering if there was any way bitComposer games would be willing to re-license Jagged Alliance 2 under a less restrictive open source license, so that the various people in the Jagged Alliance community don't feel their hands are tied as much when it comes to modifying (and distributing said modifications) the game.



For instance, I'm involved in a project with very limited goals for Jagged Alliance 2:
1. Bug-fixes.

2. Portability.

3. Data-externalization.



Nothing has been (or is going to be) changed relating to the general look-and-feel, the gameplay, or the spirit of the game at all in our project.



The issue we've encountered is that the current license's wording doesn't make it clear whether or not we can distribute the data-files of Jagged Alliance 2 in addition to our modifications.



It would be much better (and would probably gain the Jagged Alliance series a larger fan-base) if we would be able to release our modifications along with the original data-files in an all-in-one installer for the various operating systems we have made it able to be run on such as Windows, Mac OS X, (Free)BSD, and (Ubuntu) Linux, rather than forcing prospective users to copy the data-files from a current installation, and/or the game CD(s), then downloading and applying our modifications.



Please let me know if your interpretation of the license allows us to do this, and if not, if bitComposer games would be willing to re-license Jagged Alliance 2 under a less restrictive license that would allow us to.



Thank you very much for your time and patience; I hope to hear from you again soon.



Sincerely,



Geoffrey White


P.S.: Thank you for your previous response; I appreciate the swiftness of your reply.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Stephan.Barnickel@bit-Composer.com
To: whiteg@sympatico.ca
CC: veronika.tomasevic-sanz@bit-Composer.com
Subject: AW: Jagged Alliance
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 11:33:29 +0200

Dear Geoffrey,



bitComposer games owns the whole Jagged Alliance IP. This contains also the past games.



Kind regards,

Stephan



Stephan Barnickel

Product Manager



bitComposer Games GmbH | Mergenthalerallee 79-81 | 65760 Eschborn | Germany



t: +49 (0)61 96 / 77 93 8 16

m: +49 (0)170 / 2969193

e: Stephan.barnickel@bit-composer.com

w: http://www.bit-Composer.com





Von: Geoffrey WHITE [mailto:whiteg@sympatico.ca]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 8. Juli 2010 13:39
An: pr@bit-composer.com
Betreff: Jagged Alliance



To;
bitComposer Games Public Relations Department

Quick question: Does bit-Composer Games own the IP of past Jagged Alliance games (such as Jagged Alliance 2)?

From,

Geoffrey Michael White