diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'History/History.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | History/History.txt | 39 |
1 files changed, 39 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/History/History.txt b/History/History.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04b4fe8 --- /dev/null +++ b/History/History.txt @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ +This directory is intended to document the history of Beyond The Titanic and +provide documentation of how it became free software. + +Beyond The Titanic was originally written by Scott Miller in the 1980s. Going +off of the copyright notices in the source code he began in 1984. The game +was originally proprietary. + +Later, Scott Miller was one of the founders of Apogee Software, Ltd. in +1987 [0]. + +According to the corporate timeline [1] Beyond The Titanic was published in +1986 before Apogee started and then released as freeware (but still +proprietary) in 1998 [2]. In 2009 Apogee Software released the source code +under the GPL [3]. + +Based on the comments made in the announcement [3] and in the readme.txt that +came with the game [4] it appears that they were putting it under the GPL as +part of their process to throw the code over the wall to forget about. They +even just added the part of it being GPLed underneath the previous text from +where the game had been released as freeware in 1998. + +In reviewing the license headers in their release [5] there are copyright +notices from Apogee Software so it appears that Scott Miller transferred his +copyright to Apogee at some point. This make sense since he was one of the +founders of the company and the game had been distributed as an Apogee +program. Also, the license headers indicated it was specifically released +under the GNU General Public License version 2 or any later version. I took +advantage of that to upgrade it to the GNU General Public License version 3 +or any later version. The modifications are licensed under the GNU Affero +General Public License version 3 or any later version. This combination of +GPLv3 or later and AGPLv3 or later is permitted under section 13 of each +license. + +[0] See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=3D_Realms&oldid=605663632 +[1] See the file timeline.png or visit https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.3drealms.com/history.html +[2] See the file btt-freeware.png or readme.txt in this directory or visit https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.3drealms.com/news/1998/03/beyond_the_tita.html +[3] See the file gpl-announcement.png or visit https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.3drealms.com/news/2009/03/several_old_games_released_as_freeware.html +[4] See readme.txt in this directory. +[5] See the initial commit in this git repository or ftp://ftp.3drealms.com/freeware/tit_free.zip |