Add command line arguments to print licenses, authors and donors #51028

Calinou · 2021-07-29T17:29:52Z

This is required for complying with third-party licenses when distributing headless/server binaries (including Docker containers).

Since the license text is already included within the binary, this doesn't increase the binary size.

This adds the following command line arguments:

--about license - Prints Godot's MIT license
--about thirdparty-copyrights - Prints third-party copyright notices with SPDX license names
--about thirdparty-licenses - Prints the full text of third-party licenses
--about authors - Print the engine contributors' names
--about donors - Print the engine donors' names

Preview

Note: The Unicode parsing error demonstrated in this preview has since been fixed.

October 2022 edit: I tweaked the output to use print_line_rich() for prettier output (not shown on the output below).

`--about license`

❯ bin/godot.linuxbsd.tools.64.llvm --about license
MIT license
===========

Copyright (c) 2007-2021 Juan Linietsky, Ariel Manzur.
Copyright (c) 2014-2021 Godot Engine contributors (cf. `--about authors` CLI argument).

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

`--about thirdparty-copyrights`

❯ bin/godot.linuxbsd.tools.64.llvm --about thirdparty-copyrights
Godot Engine includes the following components. Some of them are developed by third parties:

- Godot Engine

    © 2007-2021, Juan Linietsky, Ariel Manzur.
    © 2014-2021, Godot Engine contributors.
    License: Expat

- Godot Engine logo

    © 2017, Andrea Calabró
    License: CC-BY-4.0

- Bullet Continuous Collision Detection and Physics Library

    © 2011, Ole Kniemeyer, MAXON, www.maxon.net
    © 2007-2021, Juan Linietsky, Ariel Manzur.
    © 2014-2021, Godot Engine contributors.
    License: Expat and Zlib

    © 2003-2008, Erwin Coumans
    © 2007-2021, Juan Linietsky, Ariel Manzur.
    © 2014-2021, Godot Engine contributors.
    License: Expat and Zlib

    © 2007, Starbreeze Studios
    © 2007-2021, Juan Linietsky, Ariel Manzur.
    © 2014-2021, Godot Engine contributors.
    License: Expat and Zlib

    © 2003-2013, Erwin Coumans
    License: Zlib

[...]

`--about thirdparty-licenses`

❯ bin/godot.linuxbsd.tools.64.llvm --about thirdparty-licenses 
Godot Engine includes components licensed under the following open source licenses:

- Apache-2.0

    Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
    you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
    You may obtain a copy of the License at
    
    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
    
    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
    limitations under the License.
    

- Bitstream Vera Fonts Copyright

[...]

`--about authors`

❯ bin/godot.linuxbsd.tools.64.llvm --about authors            

Lead Developers
===============

Juan Linietsky (reduz)

Project Managers
================

Unicode parsing error: Invalid unicode codepoint ffffffc3.


Founders
========

Juan Linietsky (reduz)                            Ariel Manzur (punto-)

Developers
==========

Aaron Franke (aaronfranke)                        Aaron Record (LightningAA)
Alexander Holland (AlexHolly)                     Alexey Khoroshavin (allkhor)

[...]

`--about donors`

❯ bin/godot.linuxbsd.tools.64.llvm --about donors 

Platinum Sponsors
=================

Gamblify <https://www.gamblify.com>    Heroic Labs <https://heroiclabs.com>    Spiffcode <http://www.spiffcode.com>

Gold Sponsors
=============

None currently, become one! <https://godotengine.org/donate>

Silver Sponsors
===============

ASIFA-Hollywood <https://www.asifa-hollywood.org>    LITSLINK <https://litslink.com>

Bronze Sponsors
===============

Ben Nolan                     Brandon Lamb                  Garry Newman
Gordon MacPherson             Hunter Dickson                Kitcat490
Kyle Szklenski                Moonwards <https://www.moonwards.com>    TrampolineTales <http://trampolinetales.com>

Mini Sponsors
=============

AD Ford                       alex brown                    Andrew Dunai
Angry Skull                   anti666                       blurp

[...]

TODO

Fix --about authors and --about donors misbehaving on names containing Unicode characters. I can never figure out how to use String::utf8() on a Variant 🙁

YuriSizov · 2021-10-14T12:20:20Z

FYI, the Unicode part was fixed separately in #53773.

reduz · 2022-07-30T11:41:14Z

main/main.cpp

@@ -640,6 +642,130 @@ Error Main::setup(const char *execpath, int argc, char *argv[], bool p_second_ph
 			print_line(get_full_version_string());
 			goto error;

+		} else if (I->get() == "--about") {


I wonder if we could move this to another file like main/show_license.h/cpp or similar to avoid adding even more bloat to that file.

I can look into this. Should this be done with some static methods in a main/show_license.cpp file, or is something more elaborate needed?

Riteo · 2023-04-05T14:42:50Z

I'm kinda surprised that this wasn't available already. Are reduz' changes the only blocker here?

Calinou · 2023-04-05T15:05:27Z

Rebased and tested again, it works as expected.

Regarding splitting to a separate file, I'm not sure if there are enough lines of code to warrant this. There would be a lot of boilerplate compared to actual code. I've started working on a built-in licenses GUI which is a complement to this CLI, but it'll likely need different code as the output will be formatted differently.

Edit: Pull request opened: #79599

Riteo · 2023-04-05T15:10:30Z

@Calinou

Regarding splitting to a separate file, I'm not sure if there are enough lines of code to warrant this.

Yeah it looks like a fairly small and single-use part of code. I'm aware that main.cpp is a bit messy but I don't think that this would tidy it that much.

nathanfranke · 2023-04-05T19:37:59Z

This should comply for desktop, ~~android, HTML5~~, but not iOS nor UWP docs.

Also I would argue a message on startup like "use flag --about for licensing information" is necessary, assuming it isn't already added.

Edit 1: Crossed out ones that might not support passing command line arguments

Edit 2: Message can be added to existing line "Godot engine, copyright. Pass --about for license details."

Not perfect since the message might be different on unsupported platforms.

Calinou · 2023-04-05T19:49:53Z

This PR only aims to provide automatic compliance on desktop platforms. It's also the only way to provide automatic compliance when distributing a headless binary 🙂

For mobile/web platforms, a GUI is needed as I commented above. It'll also be useful on desktop platforms in situations where you can't use a command prompt or don't know how to.

This is why I think we need both a CLI and GUI for this – they're complementary to each other.

Also I would argue a message on startup like "use flag --about for licensing information" is necessary, assuming it isn't already added.

This could be added, but I've seen complaints about the two-line startup banner already being intrusive. Making it three lines would worsen this, especially since it would also be printed in the Output panel in the editor every time you run the project.

fire

I would like this for 4.3 but @akien-mga let us know if it is a blocker to move the change to a separate file.

fire · 2024-11-02T04:45:42Z

Question is there a current feature to add licenses from godot extensions?

Calinou · 2024-11-02T23:41:27Z

Question is there a current feature to add licenses from godot extensions?

Not that I know of, but this should be discussed in its own proposal.

Rindbee

Overall pretty good.

Rindbee · 2025-03-11T04:58:56Z

main/main.cpp

@@ -539,6 +540,7 @@ void Main::print_help(const char *p_binary) {
 	print_help_title("General options");
 	print_help_option("-h, --help", "Display this help message.\n");
 	print_help_option("--version", "Display the version string.\n");
+	print_help_option("--about", "Display engine information (\"license\", \"thirdparty-copyrights\", \"thirdparty-licenses\", \"authors\", \"donors\").\n");


Suggested change

print_help_option("--about", "Display engine information (\"license\", \"thirdparty-copyrights\", \"thirdparty-licenses\", \"authors\", \"donors\").\n");

print_help_option("--about-engine", "Display engine information (\"license\", \"thirdparty-copyrights\", \"thirdparty-licenses\", \"authors\", \"donors\").\n");

The engine is actually a third-party component in a game project, although I think it can be listed separately. Be more explicit to differentiate between game and engine.

On the other hand, we have --help/--version instead of --help-engine/--version-engine. While there's some ambiguity, I think we should favor consistency here.

Game arguments should already be placed after a -- and ++ separator since Godot 4.0. (If this is found to be too tedious for some use cases, we could support an alternative +syntax that would allow you to pass game arguments at any position, without needing -- or ++.)

This is fine with me. I just worry that sensitive game developers will mind game users misunderstanding (mainly the --about license option) and protest against this behavior.

Rindbee · 2025-03-11T05:01:01Z

main/main.cpp

@@ -1097,6 +1099,138 @@ Error Main::setup(const char *execpath, int argc, char *argv[], bool p_second_ph
 			exit_err = ERR_HELP; // Hack to force an early exit in `main()` with a success code.
 			goto error;

+		} else if (arg == "--about") {


Suggested change

} else if (arg == "--about") {

} else if (arg == "--about-engine") {

See above.

Rindbee · 2025-03-11T05:04:42Z

main/main.cpp

+				if (N->get() == "license") {
+					print_line_rich("[b][u]MIT license[/u][/b]");
+					// Replace reference to the `AUTHORS.md` file by the equivalent command line argument.
+					print_line_rich(String::utf8(GODOT_LICENSE_TEXT).replace("AUTHORS.md", "[code]--about authors[/code] command line argument"));


Suggested change

print_line_rich(String::utf8(GODOT_LICENSE_TEXT).replace("AUTHORS.md", "[code]--about authors[/code] command line argument"));

print_line_rich(String::utf8(GODOT_LICENSE_TEXT).replace("AUTHORS.md", "[code]--about-engine authors[/code] command line argument"));

See above.

This is required for complying with third-party licenses when distributing headless/server binaries (including Docker containers). Since the license text is already included within the binary, this doesn't increase the binary size.

Calinou added enhancement topic:core labels Jul 29, 2021

Calinou added this to the 4.0 milestone Jul 29, 2021

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Calinou marked this pull request as ready for review July 29, 2021 20:42

Calinou requested a review from a team as a code owner July 29, 2021 20:42

Calinou force-pushed the cli-add-license-authors-donors branch from 8cbbbc8 to 3abdcd5 Compare July 29, 2021 20:42

This was referenced Aug 8, 2021

Include a license file for the Godot engine when exporting projects godotengine/godot-proposals#3107

Open

[TRACKER] Command line-related issues #51393

Open

reduz requested changes Jul 30, 2022

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Calinou force-pushed the cli-add-license-authors-donors branch from 3abdcd5 to 547108c Compare October 4, 2022 23:09

timothyqiu mentioned this pull request Dec 1, 2022

re-license default project icon as public domain #61955

Open

YuriSizov modified the milestones: 4.0, 4.1 Feb 10, 2023

YuriSizov requested a review from a team February 10, 2023 19:09

Calinou mentioned this pull request Feb 13, 2023

Update Complying with Licenses page godotengine/godot-docs#5329

Closed

Calinou mentioned this pull request Mar 26, 2023

Make MarginContainer available with disable_advanced_gui=yes #75367

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Calinou force-pushed the cli-add-license-authors-donors branch from 547108c to f95498e Compare April 5, 2023 15:05

YuriSizov modified the milestones: 4.1, 4.2 Jun 14, 2023

Calinou mentioned this pull request Jul 18, 2023

Add built-in GUI to display license notices (reverted) #79599

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AThousandShips modified the milestones: 4.2, 4.3 Oct 26, 2023

fire approved these changes Feb 12, 2024

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Calinou force-pushed the cli-add-license-authors-donors branch from f95498e to 56e23a0 Compare February 12, 2024 23:46

akien-mga modified the milestones: 4.3, 4.x Jun 28, 2024

Jayman2000 mentioned this pull request Nov 1, 2024

Add Engine.get_source_info() to help people comply with the MPL 2.0 godotengine/godot-proposals#11064

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Calinou force-pushed the cli-add-license-authors-donors branch from 56e23a0 to ba92d70 Compare November 1, 2024 23:12

fire mentioned this pull request Nov 3, 2024

Add a way for GDExtension authors to add their own license text to Engine.get_copyright_info() and Engine.get_license_info()'s output godotengine/godot-proposals#11076

Open

SheepYhangCN mentioned this pull request Mar 11, 2025

The third-party license window does not accomplish its intentions, and should be an addon instead of in core. #103830

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Add command line arguments to print licenses, authors and donors #51028

Add command line arguments to print licenses, authors and donors #51028

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	print_help_option("--about", "Display engine information (\"license\", \"thirdparty-copyrights\", \"thirdparty-licenses\", \"authors\", \"donors\").\n");
	print_help_option("--about-engine", "Display engine information (\"license\", \"thirdparty-copyrights\", \"thirdparty-licenses\", \"authors\", \"donors\").\n");

	} else if (arg == "--about") {
	} else if (arg == "--about-engine") {

	print_line_rich(String::utf8(GODOT_LICENSE_TEXT).replace("AUTHORS.md", "[code]--about authors[/code] command line argument"));
	print_line_rich(String::utf8(GODOT_LICENSE_TEXT).replace("AUTHORS.md", "[code]--about-engine authors[/code] command line argument"));

Add command line arguments to print licenses, authors and donors #51028

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Add command line arguments to print licenses, authors and donors #51028

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Calinou commented Jul 29, 2021 • edited Loading

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--about license

--about thirdparty-copyrights

--about thirdparty-licenses

--about authors

--about donors

TODO

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`--about license`

`--about thirdparty-copyrights`

`--about thirdparty-licenses`

`--about authors`

`--about donors`

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