The title pretty much says it all. I was just wondering whether I would still be required to do all the stupid crap that Genesis3D wants me to do even though the website itself considers it "abandonware."

https://www.genesis3d.com​

Created by Eclipse Entertainment between 1996 and 1999 and later acquired by WildTangent in the year 2000, Genesis3D was one of the first open-source rendering engines and served the interest of a large base of aspiring game developers, many of which became professional game developers and still serve in the industry today.

While no longer viable on today's modern hardware the engine lives on as a historical artifact as we look to turn the page to a new chapter in modern graphics engine development. If you care to develop with Genesis3D 1.1, you may do so, free of licensing obligations as the engine is abandonware and the stakeholders are long gone.

And the download link is provided, of course, here: https://www.genesis3d.com/downloads.html​

If you need more clarification, just tell me, because it is almost 4:00 A.M. and my mind isnt working well from being awake for almost 2 days straight, and I might not give all the information in a convenient manner ahaha.

I am not a lawyer but

afaik “abandonware” doesn't exist legally, you always need a document explaining what you can and cannot do, even if it says you can do anything you want. (eg we have CC0(?) and WTPL for legally defining public domain)

The term abandomware is mostly used by people illegally selling old software which they justify "as the original license holders have no interest in it any more". Legally, at least in my country, as far as I know license free starts after around 75 years after the death of the original author.

@Alberth But wait, the Genesis3D company itself said that the engine was license free. If the company itself says that the license is null and void, isn't that enough of a safezone?

License-free doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. A license is a permission to use the software. No license, no permission, so it would not be legal to use the software at all. There are only three cases where it is legal to use software: if the software is in the public domain, if you have a license, or if you hold the copyright to the software yourself.

However, the following line of text is in fact a license:

If you care to develop with Genesis3D 1.1, you may do so

It's a bit ambiguous - there's a reason why even the CC0 license has more text than that - and it's only valid if it comes from the holder of the copyright, but it's still a license. If that's good enough for you, go for it.

(Standard disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.)

yaboiryan said:

@Alberth But wait, the Genesis3D company itself said that the engine was license free. If the company itself says that the license is null and void, isn't that enough of a safezone?

Well, that's up to you. How much risk do you want to take?

Say you believe the site, copy the software, and build a million-dollar profit product from it. Then Genesis changes its site and sues you. Can you proof to the court you had the right to do what you did?

As ‘a light breeze’ says, legally you need an explicit license that lists what you may do, and under what conditions. The license must be provably belong to the software.

By default, anything published on the Internet is still owned exclusively by its copy-right holder. You can read it, but you may not copy it or distribute it. Read but no touching. It's like a car parked in the public street. The fact that it's in the public street doesn't give you permission to use the car as you see fit, you have to ask its owner for permission.

So if you want to use/copy the software, you have to ask explicit (and for your safety, provable) permission to the owner to use the published information. A license that is provably linked to a published work is basically that permission without you having to hassle the owner about it.

The text “If you care to develop with Genesis3D 1.1, you may do so” can be interpreted as a license, but it is highly ambiguous. You apparently may ‘use’ the software, whatever that means. But may you make a copy of it? May you make additional copies for back-up? May you give other persons a copy? May you use it in commercial context?

Second, what happens when you then distribute works that you created using that software? Under what conditions are you allowed to do that?

May you distribute the genesis software itself as part of your product, for example? Does that have consequences for the license of your product? May you make enhancements in the software? If yes, what rules must you obey in such a case?

(standard disclaimer: this is not legal advice)