> "Mark R. Diggory" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires > >a fee and/or specific permission. > > > Basically what this is saying is "talk to us". ACM > is suggesting > involvement and acknowledgment of their efforts in > organizing and > archiving these algorithms. I think often these > license clauses (while > legally protecting the the license') are also > grounds for establishing > 'legal' avenues of involvement and partnership.
Absolutely. I'm an ACM member as well, and it's a great organization. It's certainly possible they *might* choose to donate code to the Apache project. I merely meant to point out that the license has restrictions that would prohibit simply incorportating the software into an Apache Group project w/out such permission from ACM. > As such, if we > have an interest in using ACM material, we should > contact ACM and get an > official position on the usage of such material for > an Open Source > Apache project and the legal bindings they would > want in such a > relationship.. Well, again, my understanding of the Apache project and its mission leads me to believe that those "legal bindings" would have to be "you may release this under the Apache license" w/ no additional restrictions placed by the ACM. > > We also have to consider here, what *copies are not > made or distributed > for direct commercial advantage* means in this case > as well. IANAL, but the plain language seems quite clear. "Direct commercial advantage" means you are selling the software as a product (with or w/out source, alone or in combination w/ other software), not e.g. teaching a course (for which you and some institution get paid) or using the code for some other purpose which happens to generate revenue but where the primary activity is not distribution of the code (like leasing computer time on a supercomputer which happens to have the software installed as a library -- no distribution there). > > Remember, the core necessity of > Open Source > licensing is about protecting the authors rights, > not about restricting > the reuse and development of Open Source code. > Careful there pilgrim! That kind of talk starts license wars (as very reasonable people can quite strongly disagree about "the core neccessity of OSS" -- it's the tension between authors' rights and users' rights that causes the split between GPL proponents and Apache license proponents). To end on a non-flamewar-inspiring note, the correct thing to do WRT ACM stuff is obviously to ask the ACM on a case-by-case basis if they'd be interested in donating it. Dave
