The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Is the original SCII source/media still available (if I sync to the first submitted change perhaps) in the public domain?  I'd like to take a look and possibly attempt a port to .NET.  While I would prefer to start with the latest UQM code, I'm not able to play with anything under GPL according to my employment contract.  Public domain should be safe.

The code has been released by TFB under the GPL. There is no version which is in the public domain.

Crazy, I could have sworn I'd read that on the sourceforge page for years now.  Google probably explains my confusion: "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: public domain."  And a quick search shows that many of these sites are confusing "open source" with "public domain".

Oh well, thanks for the quick answer!

Out of curiousity, may I ask why your contract prevents you from playing with GPL? I mean, Im assuming you want to tinker around for your own private fun?

He probably has an "all your code are belong to us" clause somewhere in there that would require him to turn over all the rights for what he's working on to his employer. This doesn't work very well in a situation where he's bound by GPL and has to give his employer rights he doesn't have. The contract may even explicitly forbid GPL code for this reason (I've seen Microsoft do this, for example). Whether the employer or employee owns the code the employee does in his spare time depends on the contract and local law, though.

In any case, asking your employer for permission to work on UQM is a good idea; that way they can either allow you to keep what you write for UQM or license what you do under GPL and retain copyright.

A contract can demand rights on code you work on your own time?

That's ridiculous.

Ridiculous, but apparently a real problem in some places. The GPL actually states (in its "How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs" section):