# Commandory licensing

Updated 2026-10-16.

EA has not endorsed and does not support this product.

Commandory's original contributions are licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 (GPL-3.0-only), without additional terms imposed by Commandory. The complete GPLv3 is in LICENSE.txt. This grant covers only contributions we are entitled to license, not third-party code, game assets or trademarks.

The inherited VanillaConquer/EA engine retains its copyright notices and the license supplied in Vanilla-Conquer/License.txt, including applicable additional terms. Commandory is a modified version, not the original program or an official EA release; see MODIFICATIONS.md. Third-party libraries and fonts retain their own licenses.

GPLv3 section 7 gives recipients the right to remove non-permissive additional terms outside the categories permitted by section 7(a)-(f). The FSF explains that this removal right is permission granted by the licensor, intended to protect software freedom against contradictory restrictions. See [Protecting free software against confusing additional restrictions](https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/protecting-free-software-against-confusing-additional-restrictions) (14 November 2023).

Preserving an upstream notice for attribution and provenance does not waive that removal right, make an incompatible restriction binding, or mean that every upstream addition is valid. Equally, the removal right does not mean that all additional terms are prohibited: section 7 expressly permits certain warranty, attribution, origin, publicity, trademark and conditional-indemnity terms. No blanket finding that all EA additions fall outside those categories is made here, and no blanket removal is claimed. Commandory imposes no additional restrictions of its own.

Declining to grant trademark rights is distinct from imposing a copyright-based restriction on otherwise permitted distribution. Those are not interchangeable, and preserving the upstream wording does not endorse every possible interpretation of it. GPL permissions do not themselves grant trademark rights or relicense original game assets.

You may use, study, modify and redistribute the covered software, including commercially, subject to its applicable license. There is no warranty; see the full license texts. EA released the original Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert base games as freeware. Their assets are separate from the GPL-licensed engine; community content retains its authors’ terms.

The build ships commandory-source.tar.gz and source-build.json beside its engine binaries. The archive includes the modified engine, original integration sources, build scripts, linked runtime sources and notices; source-build.json identifies the supplied artifacts. The optional prebuilt FFmpeg converter has separate source/notices obligations, not satisfied by the engine snapshot alone.

## EA franchise guidelines and separate asset rights

See [EA’s 2025 Franchise Modding Guidelines](https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/news/modding-faq). The current artwork/music distribution needs a separate rights assessment before public clearance is claimed. Original freeware provenance and the GPL engine grant cover different material; serving assets through verified ranges does not change their identity or establish additional permission. Community packs and custom music require their own provenance.

This project currently has no paid gameplay, transactions, advertising or donation features. GPL-covered code retains its applicable license and freedoms; this reference does not add a noncommercial condition to Commandory’s code license or claim that a later web policy retroactively changes GPL rights. Neither EA permission for our current logo/music use nor full compliance of the combined deployment has been established. The License popup records those open issues.