…hi guys…im not so bright when we talk about various license schemes, so forgive me if my question feels wrong…basically, i would like to know, what sort of things JME3 allow me to do commercially? Or precisely, if i program Editor for use with JME3, am I allowed to sell it, provided that all i use is JME3 just and only…no other 3rd party libs or whatever…am I allowed to sell it, or i can sell only games made by JME3??
You can do anything with JME, basically, except say you developed it and sue us.
Did you actually look at the license? Wondering which parts are unclear.
…i have not read license…reason is that i truly have difficulty to understand anything falls under ‘lawyer talk umbrella’ 
, which is reason why i ask here…
3 Likes
tbh it can be pretty unclear to a non native speaker.
Heheh… “I haven’t read it because I’m sure I won’t understand it.” Well, to be sure you won’t understand it if you never read it.
/*
* Copyright (c) 2009-2012 jMonkeyEngine
* All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
* met:
*
* * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
*
* * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
* documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
*
* * Neither the name of 'jMonkeyEngine' nor the names of its contributors
* may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
* without specific prior written permission.
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
* "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
* TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
* PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR
* CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
* EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
* PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
* PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
* LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
* NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
* SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
*/
So, which part is confusing?
* * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
* documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
This one is not 100% clear to me what is meant by “… must reproduce the above copyright”
Reproducing an bug would be clear to me 
What is meant by “above copyright”?
Maybe this
* Copyright (c) 2009-2012 jMonkeyEngine
* All rights reserved.
?
So for me I have the very same problem And for me English is as well not my native language nor am I very good in languages (except computer languages of course)
Basically, you must cut-and-paste the license somewhere in your distribution. If JME included the license in its jar files (don’t know that it does) then that would be enough ‘reproducing’. You could also just include the license text somewhere in your distribution. Doesn’t really matter where.
The thing is, 99% of all licenses have exactly this same clause in one form or another… so it’s a good one to know.
3 Likes
Also note, unlike other writing, legal writing like licenses can be interpreted much like code. If it doesn’t explicitly say it then it doesn’t mean it. This means you can break it down word by word and phrase by phrase, just like a compiler does to code.
Normal writing doesn’t work that way.
1 Like
There is one more thing that I would like to add: Yesterday when I installed jME 3.1 I read the EULA (against my usual habbit to just agree and become part of the human centipad) and … it mostly consists of lots of license texts for third party libraries for zip and png and etc. Maybe you will need something like that too.
Also, I just worried how much care a software contractor must take in each country to make sure that no error happens on the user’s computer. Is just saying “As is” enough everywhere? Seems to be the usual habbit. But I guess that if you sell something instead of giving it away for free, laws might be different. It’s a guess only.
Also note, that not everything that you write into a legal text is automatically valid - for example: the human centipad would still be illegal in Germany by the principle of “contra bonos mores”.
The license texts for the SDK are specific to the SDK - the core engine libraries don’t contain anything thats not under the jME BSD license. So unless you want to redistribute the SDK you don’t need to include all that info, a normal game only has the BSD licensed engine libraries shipped with it.
The way I could understand this is basicly if you say this game was made using JMonkeyEngine then there are grounds for a lawsuit? I know that’s not what it actually means but just goes to show how vague lawyerspeak is. Since the word “derive” can be defined as “to have something as a source”, a lawyer could argument that using it as an engine is contained in that. 
But saying “made with JME” does not promote the product. If you said “the JME developers approve this game” it’d be a different thing though as far as I understood it.
Yep, exactly as mathiasj says. “Made with jMonkeyEngine” - fine and actually encouraged. “jMonkeyEngine Team says this game rocks” - not fine.
2 Likes
I dream of the day when legal stuff is written as clearly as that. The MIT licence could possibly be shortened to “Use common sense and don’t be a douchebag.”
3 Likes
Well, I guess to an english speaker, “endorse and promote” means something specific.
http://i.imgur.com/EDwCX8Y.png
http://i.imgur.com/h5SXK8Z.png
So the name of JME or the members (that’s us) cannot be used as if we “declared public approval of” or “further the progress of” your game.
Yes, to be clear, your app is absolutely derived from JME. So it does fall under the clause… ie: that statement does apply to a JME-using app. But the statement is talking about using our name to endorse or promote your product.
This is tricky. Did someone just sit around all day thinking off all the possible meanings of each word in that paragraph?
Wait, that’s why lawyers exist.
Well it is really tricky.
I recently saw a case where some evil hackers used a third party open source software in order to make their evil trojan-horse-spying-and-money-stealing-shit. The maker of the third party open source software had to defend himself publicly in order to restore his reputation. So in fact, evil people can ruin your name just by using your software in order to trick innocent users. If they properly cover their identity, it is not even possible to sue them or name a responsible person. And I’ve never heard of an evil hacker who did not at least try to properly cover his identity.
By the way, the CC-BY style licenses for 3d models and other assets have a very similar clause (with the word “endorse” in it) - see part 4.b in http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode.txt
So, if you use that beautiful bikini girl in your evil torture game, then you must name the author of the original 3d model (like stated in CC-BY license text), but I doubt that the original author will be lucky that his name appears in your credits list. It is a contradiction in itself, very similar to the lost reputation of the coder whose code had been misused by evil hackers.
There is a HUGE difference between endorsing and getting recognition. Just HUGE.
Literally the difference between:
-line in the credits that says Joe Artist created this bikini model
-and, Joe Artist says this Torture game is “THE BEST!”
Hopefully you see how those two things are vastly different. No sane person will think poorly of Joe Artist just because he is listed in the credits of a game because of his CC-BY requirement.
Edit: and by the way, this is exactly what I mean by that contracts/licenses must be interpreted as narrowly as possible. They use specific language for a reason.
Hard to comment without a reference. For example, if “third party open source software” was a “tool that is 90% of the time used only for hacking” then it’s a tough argument to make, really. So please don’t pollute the thread with uncited anecdotal references else they will just be labeled urban legend… since that’s basically how urban legends are started. “No really! It happened to my cousin!” 
…so in short, I can develop and sell, any kind of software, with use of JME, but i shouldnt say a word which indicates that JME is used because im promoting my products by mentioning JME??