releasing a commerical game using aquaria?

[Sze]

hey
would it be possible to release a commerical game with aquaria's editor?
or would you have to only use the code from aquaria?

[GMMan]

What is your project? Considering that Aquaria's engine is open source, I think they'd let you incorporate the editor into your project, as long as you don't use any of Aquaria's data files. And that you might need to make your engine open source as well, though I'm not sure what the terms of the GPL are (even after reading it quite a few times).

I'd suggest that you don't use the Aquaria editor as-is, because it's still sort of rough. If you can improve it somehow, feel free to do so and contribute the code back to the project.

[Katana]

The GPL says that any modifications to an existing program must be then republished as GPL. So if you're making a modified engine, you would need to license it under the same license.

I'd think the best method for this would be releasing as a sort of unofficial expansion pack / mod, kind of like Opposing Force and Blueshift from Half-Life 1. Of course, when making those Gearbox got permission from Valve, so you may have to do the same from Bit-Blot.

[GMMan]

On reconsideration, if you make the Aquaria editor a standalone tool, you won't have to open-source your engine if you don't use any code from Aquaria for map handling (that is, writing all map handling code from scratch).