Actually, I just read this again and I think I may be off-base. What I'm saying definitely applies to commercially licensed source code, at least the components that we've licensed, but may not be applicable to open-source code. The whole thing is pretty complicated, and it really depends on what license, if any, has been asserted by the developer of the original code. I'll go back to my initial suggestion, which is to ask an IP lawyer if you want to be on the safe side. :)
-Mark -----Original Message----- From: Mark Cameron Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 1:06 PM To: Palm Developer Forum Subject: RE: How to write a software license agreement? > I might not be reading you right, Mark. Are you saying that you can > include open-source components as part of a propriatary application, > provided that you significantly change them? That sounds like > extremely dangerous advice, and I hope I've misunderstood your > meaning. No, I'm just saying that open-source components (or components for which you have commercially licensed source code) typically can be used within your application, and you can still call the overall application your own intellectual property. What you can't do is just build the sources and re-package them as your own commercial products. This is actually more applicable to commercial components, but the principles are basically the same. For example, we have licensed a communication component, which was provided to us with source code. We are allowed to use that code within our product, modified or unmodified, yet we can still copyright our product as our IP. The license for the component does state however that we cannot simply re-package their source code, or build it "as is" into an executable library, and sell that as our own product. Hope that's a bit more clear. Anyway, I totall agree with what you're saying in the rest of your e-mail... -Mark -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/ -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
