Legal matters for my addon

[PlutonianEmpire]

How should I handle the legal matter when uploading my modified Apollo addon to The Motherlode, since currently, the ssc file links to the default textures in the default directories, and since I copied Mir, ISS, and Hubble to the Apollo folder (because .ssc definitions in "extras" won't link to the "extras-standard" folder)?

[selden]

The inclusion of GNU licensed components results in the requirement that your Addon use the GNU license. Since Celestia uses V2 of the license, you can use either V2 or V3.
See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

I consider it a bug that SSC files cannot reference the Celestia components which are in /extras-standard/

I reported it on SourceForge, but it wouldn't hurt if you were to make a post to the Bugs forum.

[PlutonianEmpire]

The inclusion of GNU licensed components results in the requirement that your Addon use the GNU license. Since Celestia uses V2 of the license, you can use either V2 or V3.
See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

I consider it a bug that SSC files cannot reference the Celestia components which are in /extras-standard/

I reported it on SourceForge, but it wouldn't hurt if you were to make a post to the Bugs forum.

If waited and waited for the bug to be fixed, removed the files from the addon, and simply had the ssc file link to the data in "extras-standard", would I still need to use the GNU license?

[selden]

So long as your Addon contains only files which you created, then you can use whatever license you want.

[PlutonianEmpire]

The inclusion of GNU licensed components results in the requirement that your Addon use the GNU license. Since Celestia uses V2 of the license, you can use either V2 or V3.
See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

Is this the same for textures that were made by meshing two default textures together?

[selden]

The inclusion of GNU licensed components results in the requirement that your Addon use the GNU license. Since Celestia uses V2 of the license, you can use either V2 or V3.
See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

Is this the same for textures that were made by meshing two default textures together?

b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

My interpretation is this text is that when you mesh two default textures together, you are deriving a work from a part of the program, so that resulting image, and anything that includes it, has to be distributed under the terms of the GNU license. This is commonly called "contamination" and is one of the features of the GNU license that commercial software vendors do NOT like.