Files are under a license that's imcompatible with GitHub

[RobertZenz]

Some files have this license header:

//======== (C) Copyright 2002 Charles G. Cleveland All rights reserved. =========
//
// The copyright to the contents herein is the property of Charles G. Cleveland.
// The contents may be used and/or copied only with the written permission of
// Charles G. Cleveland, or in accordance with the terms and conditions stipulated in
// the agreement/contract under which the contents have been supplied.

So we are only allowed to copy these source files with written permission? That's highly incompatible with GitHub, as forking is a fundamental part of GitHub, and forking does copy the files. Even sending patches is questionable.

The README does not contain any permission which would lift these restrictions, at least not as far as I could see (only the license of the Half Life 1 SDK).

I appreciate and welcome that you put the source on GitHub, I think more "old" projects should be put into the hands of the public, especially if they don't generate any money any more or were free to begin with. But the license this code is under prohibits doing anything with it, or I'm mistaken and misread this license. In that case I apologize.

As I said, I welcome this effort, so is there any chance that this might be re-licensed under a more permissive license?

[LiamDawe]

Sorry but, "It’s not ‘open source’ – There is some legal hoo-ha that prevents that. But it is all there" from their official announcement is insane. You can't expect anyone to do anything with it while no one knows what they can and cannot touch.

[puzl]

I don't see any problem in getting the licensing issues sorted out. I was a major contributor to the code changes fro the last 3 or so years of the projects life, and my educated guess is the lack of a readme relinquishing copyright is simply an oversight. I'll contact Flayra and ask him to do something.

[Mailaender]

I think 36f159b should have resolved this.

[RobertZenz]

I'm not sure to be honest. The headers of the files haven't changed, and if in doubt these are always those that count.

Though you could argue that the README/COPYRIGHT file is the needed written agreement, but that seems like a rather unconventional...ahrm, situation for a GPL licensed application.

[Mailaender]

Probably just @Flayra being lazy?