Difficult situation with the license. How to resolve the conflict?

Question

Licenses for software and other works

So, sit back, pour some tea, I tell my story in full. Try to dive deep into my situation and give the right advice. I believe in you, I already have a roof going from choice.
Greetings, dear Toster user. I am an ordinary villager, now I am 17 years old, but that is not the point. The main topic of my story will be the game designer.
Back in 2014, when I was, respectively, 15 years old, I found something amazing - a browser browser game designer! It was a wonder to be given: without downloading additional software, you could create an entire online game! I registered on this site, especially since the conditions were very favorable for the student: using the constructor is free, but the profit from the projects is divided in half, the second half goes to the administration of the constructor. I created a game and got a team. Then I had good knowledge of layout, and I did not see any barriers to creating a game. But when the time came to moderate the project, I waited. And for a very long time. For two weeks I waited for moderation, until I saw a topic on the forum that the constructor has been no longer supported for quite some time, and the source code for such a valuable business solution is in the public domain under the GPL v3.0 license. My childlike nature knew that the GPL referred to free software licenses, but never thought about how much a single clause cuts down on freedom of action.
Time has passed. Installing the constructor sources on a Linux server was incredibly difficult. Even an experienced Linux user will not make ends meet. After a couple of weeks, I finally deployed a working, fully functional copy of the game builder. URA - I said then.
A little more time has passed. I tried to write modules in the then Arabic for me Python programming language without success. Adding a bit of financial distress, I started to cast the constructor and redeploy. The absolute dependence of the designer's life on his mood. I said "The designer has no future", and then I said "This is the best business decision." This went on for a long time, until I grew up a little.
Summer 2016. I am 16 years old, and I again remembered the designer. Thanks to my eloquent skills, I arranged with a hosting company in Vinnitsa that I could maintain my server for a small percentage. No one believed that I took it seriously this time, but a week passed, and a breakthrough was waiting for me - I connected the payment system! I was so glad that I began to understand the source codes, I could make ends meet. I made a paid subscription, and announced a little to the "oldies" about the constructor. Someone went, someone grumbled with saliva, I will not point a finger.
More time has passed (present tense). I'm 17 years old. I developed ratings, started writing a new admin panel for games, more functional and innovative. People began to believe in me a little. And then I remembered the license. Looked it up on Wikipedia:

An example of guarantees: it is forbidden to create another project based on a free program under the GPL without providing its source to users. Thus, this license does not at all allow you to do “anything” with the programs, as this license may erroneously interpret those who are not familiar with it.

It was a shock for me. I was about to raise investments and launch an advertising campaign at the moment when I read this article . It was so insulting that they could demand from me everything that I had been going for almost 2 years, all the blood that I had shed for him. I contacted the constructor owner. I thought that he would say "I allow the use of the constructor for commercial purposes, I still don't need it for the 3rd year", but it wasn't there. Much to my regret, the following situation turned out:

Very bitter... Now I need to decide what I will do and I ask you, yes, you, who read this question to the end, to take part in this. Tell me your opinion on this matter, give advice.
I think that you can make an engine out of the constructor and sell plug-ins. After all, plug-ins are my author's product.
Thank you for your attention. That's all I wanted to say.

Answer 1

I would do this: We
place an announcement about the possibility of raising the constructor.
If someone is interested in this, we offer cooperation on the terms
1. The potential client pays for the VPS in full
2. I put the constructor on this server (for free, which does not violate the license)
3. For a separate monthly fee, I provide server technical support and installation of new modules.
Thus, it is not the constructor that is being sold, but the service
Option to make an engine out of the constructor - so-so, as far as I understand, it will still not work to put it on a virtual hosting.

Answer 2

I did not understand the main thing: what is this constructor - "boxed" software for sale or an online service?
If the latter, then it is not necessary to disclose anything (which is indicated in the letter).
Although it seems to me that there is nothing super-valuable in your code that could not be revealed. So at least there will be some bug reports.

Answer 3

> I am an ordinary villager, now I am 17 years old
Nifiga imagine a "normal" rural youth gone! :-)
> I thought that he would say "I allow the use of the constructor for commercial purposes, I still don't need it for the 3rd year"
You did not carefully read what you read there. You *don't* need to ask individual permission to commercially use a free program - any free license, including the GNU GPL, by definition allows anyone to use the program commercially.
>very bitter
What is "bitter"? That the imaginary freebie broke off? I would also understand your frustration (and gloat :-ъ) if the comrade you borrowed the job from turned out to be a man of hard principles and refused to allow his work to be used in proprietary software at all.
And so - he clearly said that he was ready to sell you an exception to copyleft . And once and for all. What else do you need?
That is, if you are going to distribute non-free work. However, to be honest, I, like t. dom1n1k , did not catch what and how you are going to distribute, that you fall under the obligation to free the program.
PSOkay, there probably won't be a clear answer to the previous paragraph. As I understand it, the program in question consists of two parts: 1) running on your server and not being transferred to anyone, and 2) running in the user's web browser. And both of them contain the work of a man with a smeared face (if they are not one hundred percent his work), and are released by him under the terms of the GNU GPL.
Under the GNU GPL, the only users who need to be granted all the necessary freedoms are those who own a copy of the program. Thus, if you do not agree with a person with a smeared face to buy an exception to copyleft, then you will push the client (browser) part to users under the terms of the GNU GPL, and you can heal the server part.
> The [GNU] GPL requires source code to be released at the request of users if...
And although this is not directly related to your question, I can't help but point out that this is also incorrect. Providing sources *on demand* is just one of the options for ensuring the right to study and modify. The current, third, version of the GNU GPL, it is allowed only when distributing the assembly on a tangible medium. The second version is unconditionally allowed, but it is so inconvenient that I can’t offhand name a single PC program that would resort to it.

Answer 4

If this is an online service, then they wrote to you that you should not give anything to anyone. You're not going to sell it as a boxed solution, are you? Even if so - the author wrote that he could provide this right on a paid basis, then what's the problem?
PS You spent so much effort on this, horror ... And how much effort did the author spend, did you not think?

Answer 5

1. There are no problems. They do business on the GPL. For example, RedHat on free Linux.
2. You are obliged to publish source codes. Publish. There are no problems with this - anyway, few people are capable and few people are not lazy enough to compete with you.
The license that allows anything (be sure to retain the copyright of the author of the original program) is BSD, not GPL. In particular, this is one of the reasons why Google uses FreeBSD on many of their systems (where they don't want to share OS developments), and not Linux.

Answer 6

This is your case:
Original https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#Unrel...
Translation https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.ru.html# Unrel...
It clearly states that firms are not required to distribute the source code of their sites.

Answer 7

the situation is not easy
, but if there are boring wallpapers, it’s not so sad anymore