What if EA Wants to Release Official Patches Using Community Code? (Licensing & CLA)

[augustresende]

📢 Discussion: What if EA Wants to Release Official Patches Using Community Code? (Licensing & CLA)

With EA’s release of the C&C Generals: Zero Hour source code under GPLv3, an important legal and strategic question arises:

👉 What happens if EA wants to release official patches in the future using community-developed improvements?

🚨 The GPL Licensing Barrier

The GPLv3 license EA used is strongly copyleft, meaning that any code derived from it must also be GPLv3. This creates a major issue if EA ever wants to integrate community contributions into an official patch, because:

1. EA cannot mix GPL code with proprietary assets – If EA were to incorporate GPLv3-licensed community improvements into an official patch, they would be required to also license all game assets (textures, models, music, etc.) under GPLv3.
2. EA will never open-source their assets – It is highly unlikely EA would ever release their proprietary art, music, and other assets under an open-source license, meaning they legally cannot use GPLv3 code in an official update.
3. This means EA would be legally blocked from using community fixes – Without a workaround, any community patches/improvements developed under the current GPLv3-only framework are effectively locked away from any future official updates.

⚖️ Learning from the Bukkit/Mojang Case

This isn’t just theoretical. A similar situation already happened in gaming history.

• Bukkit, a popular Minecraft server modding project, was released under the GPL.
• Mojang acquired Bukkit, intending to use it for official server functionality.
• However, one of Bukkit’s key contributors, Wolverness, enforced the GPL license, arguing that Mojang could not use Bukkit’s GPL-licensed code in an official update without making Minecraft itself GPL.
• This led to a DMCA takedown of Bukkit, completely derailing the project and blocking Mojang from incorporating it into Minecraft.

This situation was a legal disaster for both sides. Mojang lost access to Bukkit’s improvements, and the community lost one of its most important modding platforms.

To avoid a similar fate, we must proactively address this licensing issue before any real conflict arises.

📝 Proposal: Require a Contribution License Agreement (CLA)

To allow EA to legally use community improvements in official patches without forcing them to open-source their assets, we need a Contribution License Agreement (CLA) for all PRs.

This CLA would ensure that:
✅ Community contributors license their code to both GPLv3 and EA’s proprietary use.
✅ EA can integrate improvements without violating GPLv3 (as long as they do not release engine code changes under a non-GPL license).
✅ The community benefits from official updates, as EA could incorporate community-driven fixes into their Steam releases.

📜 Suggested CLA Terms

Every contributor submitting a PR would need to agree to something like:

"By contributing to this project, you grant Electronic Arts and its affiliates a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, modify, distribute, and sublicense your contributions under both the GPLv3 license and any proprietary licensing necessary for official EA updates."

This would allow:

• The community to continue developing under GPLv3.
• EA to release official patches using community improvements without licensing their assets under GPLv3.
• No risk of DMCA takedowns like what happened with Bukkit/Mojang.

🤝 Next Steps

We need a community discussion on:

1. Do we agree that a CLA is necessary to prevent future conflicts?
2. How should we word the CLA to balance open-source contributions while allowing EA to use them?
3. How would we enforce it? (E.g., GitHub PR template requiring explicit agreement).

This is a critical decision for the future of the project. Let’s discuss! 🗣️

[xezon]

For me personally it is fine. I do not mind EA using any of my work as long as players are happy :)

I do not expect that EA would ever do this however, but I also did not expect them to open-source Generals, so there is that.

[xezon]

CCHyper:

Its fantastic to hear support for doing that (regardless of if we choose to do so), and its in the spirit of true open source collaboration.

I asked internally at EA and it seems there is something already in place in a basic form. Here is the snippet EA uses for other projects.

Before you can contribute, EA must have a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) on file that has been signed by each contributor. You can sign here: http://bit.ly/electronic-arts-cla