Re: License Counseling
> To quote > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html > ``You should also have the freedom to make modifications and use them > privately in your own work or play, without even mentioning that they > exist. If you do publish your changes, you should not be required to > notify anyone in particular, or in any particular way.'' > > So it would not be free software by the FSF's definition. I disagree. The author stated that if you publish your changes that you had to send them to him too. I see no conflict with the above in that area. Unless I missed something, the original author did not say anything about making your own private changes available back to him. Greg
Re: License Counseling
> Of course. He just can't [*] call his license either (IMHO) Open Source > or Free. Perhaps not Free. Why not open source? You can read, modify, and redistribute the source. The only caveat is that you have to send the author a copy of the changes? Come on! What's not free abotu that? Contrast that with merely making your changes back available to everyone - what's the difference? Cotrast that with the Apache license that prevents you from calling your derived work Apache. What's the difference? The author is making a restriction. So, you think the restriction is too bothersome so it is not open source? Huh? > Same story with Internet Exploder: it is freely redistributable > unchanged in binary form. It is not Open Source nor Free. > A distro could include it if it wanted to (say a Mac distro) > nevertheless. No, not same story. No source. No rigt to derive. No right to redistribute. Totally different. Apples and Oranges. > He wanted to release under an OSI certified license that does > what he wants. That is self-contradictory. See above. What exactly are the criteria to get approaval as an OSI license? That it is not too bothersome for distributors? Please. Say it ain't so! Greg
Re: License Counseling
> > I wish to release a program, and make it open source, everything is > > modifiable program and documentation, but other developer's have to report > > the modifications to me (the founding member) by sending me a copy of the > > modified program or/and application/documentation (this includes a book > > copy)for free > > This is considered to be not Open Source, because it puts too great > a burden on people that create distributions. They often need to > patch the software a bit to make it work with the rest of the > distro, and it is unreasonable to have them send 100 or 1000 > notifications to people who use licenses like this. > > In addition, your license burdens people who want to modify the > software for their own use. > > Instead, you should *encourage* people to send your their > patches, and you will find that they are mostly happy to do so, > because by working their patches into the official distribution, > they will not have to apply them over and over as you issue new releases. This cuts to the chase of a lot of the arguments among the open source and free software people lately. I think you mis-spoke: it may not be considered "Free Software" but it most certainly is open source. Fundamentallyu, if Daniel wants to release his code and/or docs under the license he described, then he should be able to IMHO. If the conditions are too burdensome for the distributions then they don't have to include it. They have the choice - they do not have to include it, any more than he has to license it in such a way that they can include it more easily. Why should Daniel be pushed to release under a license other than what he wants? If it's his copyright (and/or he has releases from contributors) then let him do what he wants - it's his to make that decision. The Free Software crowd - people that think it's not - need to revisit the menaing the freedom, IMHO. Greg
Re: Invitation to Treat
Please do - I am sure you will find it interesting and that you will be able to share insights that will enrich us all. You will want to read the licenses that are common in the Open Source world. Here is a great resource: http://www.opensource.org/ In particular, the GPL/LGPL, BSD, MPL, and Artistic Licenses. Familiarity with these is a starting point, really. We argue the finer points quite a bit here, but awareness of the basic element sof those licenses is the common ground. Welcome! Greg On Fri, 13 Jul 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > As a intellectual property researcher based in London it has been suggested > that I might find this discussion group of interest. I confess though to be > something of a luddite so I may need certain terms to be clairified. > > Can I join? > > Praveen Jeetun >
Re: GPL and closed source
> Let's say that I've developped a programm under GPL. > Is it possible to create Closed-source plugins for the GPL programm and sell > them ? If you own the copyright to the larger framework, this can be done legally. You'll want to make sure that you either completely own, or have disclaimers or assignment of rights documents from all developers. If the framework is yours, you can take all or part of it closed source at will - you own it. However, if the framework is not clearly under your copyright, then you can't do this, since you cannot link closed source to an open source framework - and pluggable modules are considered to be linking. This is my non-legal opinion, of course. Greg
Re: GPL + Commercial Exceptions
> What are the procedures and issues involved in making commercial > exceptions to GPL code? Are there any templates or guidelines out > there that people know of? Has anyone actually done this? In this scenario you would NOT be making an exception, you would be doing an additional specific case license. You released the code under the GPL, which allows certain uses of the code. Since you own the copyright for all the code, there is nothing to stop you from doing a separate deal to license that code commercially. I expect this to become more commonplace. I plan to do it myself. The issues are: 1. you must have undisputed ownership of the copyright - this means that if anyone submitted patches or fixes, you need to get disclaimers or releases from them so they assign their copyright - for the part they wrote/fixed - to you. This was a hot topic here last week - look in the archives and you will see. GNU has an informative page at: http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain.html and if you write the FSF, they will share their templates for disclaimers and releases. 2. other than that it's like any other commercial software venture. How you price it is a business issue that depends on your model and your market. As far as a "templates or guidelines" for this, look to any commercial software house and see how they do it you are about to do the same! Greg
Re: [OT] QPL-ed library linking with a GPL-ed library.
> prefred solution to people who are not fanatically anti-GPL. Just > copy the TT text. You may want to be sure that the TT text is itself not copyrighted... and if it is, get permission to use it before you copy it. There's no difference between text (like a license agreement) and code - it's a creative work, and the creator owns the copyright. Greg
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
Rick, You should just ask Brian if you can post them. Write him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'll be happy to send you the templates, but I think it's the "right thing to do"(tm) to ask the FSF before you put them on the web. Greg On Fri, 22 Jun 2001, Rick Moen wrote: > begin Greg Herlein quotation: > > > I feel uncomfortable putting them up on line after he > > clearly took steps to control the distribution of them. > > Oh, I was unaware of the latter. > > There are other organisations that use copyright-assignment protocols > of some sorts -- for example, Tripwire, Inc. for its GPLed codebase. > I'm sure I'll find one or two that seem sound, if I look around. > > -- > Cheers, "There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a > Rick Moen little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider > [EMAIL PROTECTED] price only are this man's lawful prey." - J. Ruskin (attr.) >
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
> Any chance I can get an electronic copy, so I can put them up for public > access? Hmmm, Brian actually screened me to ask why I wanted the templates - I feel uncomfortable putting them up on line after he clearly took steps to control the distribution of them. Perhaps you could ask him? assignments <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (Brian Youmans). I personally have no problem with it - but they might. Greg
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
Brian Youmans, the FSF clerk handling assignements, was kind enough to send me all the templates. Other kind folks on the list did as well. Thanks to all of them. Brian indicated that the FSF did not copyright these templates so we are free to derive from them. With Rick's link to the FSF pages (http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain.html) and these templates, I now see a path towards how to do this in the real world. I'm still interested in the "distribution" aspects - a la Tivo and such. But thanks a bunch to all of you who helped me this morning. Greg
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
> The problem (and the mechanics of dealing with copyright assignment) are > addressed, in some detail, in FSF's "Information for Maintainers of GNU > Software", http://www.fsf.org/prep/maintain_toc.html . 'Hope that helps! This is indeed quite useful. Sort of becoming a maintainer for a GNU project, is there any way to get copies of the assignment templates for review? What templates are other people using? Greg
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
> Most of the effect, though can be gotten by licensing library L > under the GPL and then saying "Licenses for using this library in > non-GPL products are available from the author." > Of course, you must make sure that any contributors to L either assign > copyright to you (simplest), or else agree fully with this scheme. Yes, this is what I am leaning towards. From a practical perspective, what is required to legally get the contributors to assign copyright to me? How are other people/orgs doing this, and are those methods going to hold up legally? Greg
RE: Real-World Copyright Assignment
> > you are free, my code is free; if you are commercial, my code is > > commercial?" > [DJW:] I believe that this would violate the definition > of "open source" used on this mailing list, but the Kermit > licence might be an example of such a (non-open source) > licence. OK, maybe I need some education on the current definitions in vogue. However, from my perspective, if a body of code is licensed in such a way that it can be linked to other open source code freely provided that all that code is also released, then that's still open source. Requiring altrernative licensing arrangements if my code is to be linked to code that is not open - that does not seem like a violation of "open source" at all to me. The goal, as I have defined it for my project, is that if you want to use my libraries in your project and your project is open source code - ie, the code is available for inspection and derivation, and no commercial fees are charged for derivative works - then I want my code to be free for your use - ie, the code is available for inspection and derivation, and no commercial fees are charged for derivative works. However, if you want to keep your code closed - for whatever reason - or charge for the right to derive from your code, then you must make alternative (commercial) arrangments with me. Surely I cannot be the only person wanting to thread this needle. My questions relate to the PRACTICAL way to go about doing this. It's all well and good to talk about it and have these goals, but how does one actually translate that to the real world? Greg
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
> One project I was involved with was considering working some sort of one-time > "click to agree to the provisions of the license" into the CVS or patch manager. I thought these were considered unenforcable. Can you really give up rights from a click? I know that contracts can legally give up rights (even some promised uner the Constitution) but can a click be a binding contractual agreement? I'd be hesitant about that. > Ugh, I don't think you can. Fool's errand, IMHO. If you submit code to a > project, you don't do it in expectation of future profits directly from the > code. Likely unworkable and unenforcable. Which brings the next thorny issue: suppose a contributor does not want to assign his/her rights to you (perhaps thinking "what do I get out of this, or perhaps opposing it on principle). What then? What if that person then creates his/her own local version that does include his.her patches, effectively forking the code? > Anyone from TiVo on this list? That's their situation with the Linux kernel > exactly. See http://www.tivo.com/linux/ Yes, Tivo released code. Wasn't there a hubub about it though? Greg
Real-World Copyright Assignment
> I will only integrate contributor's code into my codebase if they hand over > copyright to alifegames.com (in exchange for a fair share of any profits > that may derive from commercial licenses to the code in the future), so I > will be able to release my own core code at any time under any license I > wish. >>At Sun, we license OpenOffice.org code under both the LGPL and SISSL. >>Since only the copyright holder can change licensing terms for a body It seems that others think like the FSF: getting code contributors to assign copyrights to contributed code is a good thing. However, I'm very interested in the actual real-world implementation of this. What kind of language do you use in the copyright assignement agreement? Is there a template that cn be copied by others? Do you require hard copy signed and snail-mailed to consider it legal? Do you apply this to all contributions? Obviously a major feature implmentation would need it, but what about a three line patch? Where is the cutoff from a practical consideration? As to contributing back profits from the effort to the original contributors, how do you calculate the share? How can you track that? I'm considering all these issues for a release of some code I have, and it's thorny with problems. I'd be very interested in a more rigourous discussion of this - on or off the list. I'm also interested in what constitutes "distribution" - if someone takes GPL code and embeds it into a network appliance and sells that product as a black box and the user never even knows what happens under the hood, is that considered "distribution?" How can a develper enforce it if they want to license the code so that "if you are free, my code is free; if you are commercial, my code is commercial?" Greg (my apologies if this stuff has been covered recently - I just found this list and I cannot find any archives of it to review).
