Re: Exchanging copyright for money (Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Matthew Palmer wrote: | On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 04:39:28PM +1000, Mary Gardiner wrote: | | | copyright holders earning income from granting extra licences, | not people who've signed their copyright away in exchange for | royalties from such sales. | | | The issue I see in this model is the problem of valuing | contributions. How do I, as the mediator of this model, work out | who gets what money? Purely by LoC has all the usual | LoC-productivity problems[1]. | | snip | As someone who might be in a position to implement a system of this | ilk in the nearish future, I'm interested in discussion points | people might like to bring to the table. | | Thanks Matthew / Mary / Jeff My interest in this arises from my recent election to the GPCG (www.gpcg.org). This is a board that oversees a lump of government money (?~A9 mil) for computing in medical practice. A bunch of us have been agitating for the principle that government funded projects should be open sourced rather than just given away to private enterprise or buried in some government archive. A few of the academics, bureaucrats and commercial medical industry software developers have come to believe that open source might be a good thing. However, in many ways they are having difficulty in letting go of their proprietary software roots. A group of them have set up the Health OpenWare Foundation (www.healthopenware.org.au) to try to come to a solution to the sorts of problems we have been discussing above. They are struggling. The environment we are working in is thus quite different to the usual open source project. There are few people with the cross domain knowledge to drive these medical computing projects (He who codes wins) but it is plain to most, that the proprietary model has led down a number of dead ends. It would be nice to find a model that would open the source for academics and interested medical practitioners to dabble in code space (Jeff's level three participants) while acknowledging that most the coding would need to be done by professional developers. OOo thus offers a model that might be applicable in this area and like others I would be interested in the options for outside developers to interact on a commercial basis. The power of an open source meritocracy may not be directly transferable to this situation but we hope that we can at least preserve the principles of code reuse and extensibility. David - -- PGP public key 0x24606D9C at pgp.mit.edu 56D7 3608 6D73 0E11 064E 79C8 AC8E 6CAE 2460 6D9C -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFAxtVvrI5sriRgbZwRAqSkAJ0d+Toc1jRpjJtx6Ql0USRkUlEFMACdHQ6E 9CYph9TUn01S8/FADn0VejI= =41Zf -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: Exchanging copyright for money (Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best)
On Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 07:16:31PM +1000, David Guest wrote: The environment we are working in is thus quite different to the usual open source project. There are few people with the cross domain knowledge to drive these medical computing projects (He who codes wins) but it is plain to most, that the proprietary model has led down a number of dead ends. It would be nice to find a model that would open the source for academics and interested medical practitioners to dabble in code space (Jeff's level three participants) while acknowledging that most the coding would need to be done by professional developers. Pay the developers, but release the source afterwards. This just requires that your developers know that either (a) he who pays owns the copyright, so that you can licence it openly, or (b) the developers keep the copyright, but all work product under the contract must be licenced openly. You might also be interested in the GNOME project's bounty system, where various desired features have cash values attached to them, to be paid to the first suitable implementation. I'd actually be interested in Jeff's thoughts on how well that has worked for GNOME, since he'd know quite a bit about it, I'd imagine. It doesn't stop you from needing a core team to do some/most of the development and probably all of the planning, but I do wonder if it could be a useful way to share the love, as it were. OOo thus offers a model that might be applicable in this area and like others I would be interested in the options for outside developers to interact on a commercial basis. The power of an open source meritocracy may not be directly transferable to this situation but we hope that we can at least preserve the principles of code reuse and extensibility. I think that the GNOME bounty scheme, could be one of the best ways of doing this. Entirely theoretical at this point, though. - Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: Exchanging copyright for money (Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best)
quote who=Michael Chesterton I think behind a successful FLOSS project is a strong community, from the community, code is one of the contributions of value. Could a kick arse idea have more value than the code that implements it? I think it could. Plus there's support, bug reports, publicity, karma and warm fuzzies :) It takes *significantly* more effort to climb up the meritocracy rungs when your contributions do not include code. See also: http://lists.slug.org.au/archives/pearls/2003/04/msg0.html - Jeff -- GVADEC 2004: Kristiansand, Norwayhttp://2004.guadec.org/ I rather think of Pat as our linguistic ornithologist here - 'Oh look, the brown noddy also nests in the mangrove!' - John Fleck -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: Exchanging copyright for money (Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best)
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 21:12, Jeff Waugh wrote: It takes *significantly* more effort to climb up the meritocracy rungs when your contributions do not include code. See also: http://lists.slug.org.au/archives/pearls/2003/04/msg0.html Well worth a read and exactly matches my experience. -- Thanks KenF OpenOffice.org developer -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 20:19, Ken Foskey wrote: On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 11:26, Harald Richard Ashburner wrote: On the Sun side do I interepret incorrectly or is ther the 'possibility' of say Sun, or someone to whom Sun might sell their copyright in the future, incorporating a bunch of stuff into StarOffice (with no space in the title, thanks Jeff :) on top of your code, and not release it to OOo? Is that right? Yes that is exactly what I am saying. Is that any sort of concern? a) It is their work and we have the source base to simply re-implement it, if we choose to. b) Do you trust the other party? c) Do you, as a person spending your time, care? If this is not acceptable then there are some really cool projects out there. gnumeric being one of them. Or do you consider this risk negligible or completely worth running due to the goodness of the OOo package as opposed to say abiword? Near zero. I support OOo due to extreme cross platform. OOo will open the door for all FOSS by installing on Windows and simply working. All good then! OOo is wy cool! Thanks very much for your thoughts on this (yep a risk exists, but you assess it at near zero.) Not something I've ever had to consider, but you have summed up the issues and their appropriate treatment in the case of OOo very nicely. Also appoligies if my email seemed a bit obtuse, I really do find all this licencing stuff fairly confusing. And I seem to have acquired something of an embrace extend a standard base paranoia I can't imagine why... but paranoia is just that. By the way I hope in the future to merge some underlying libraries for ALL FOSS word processors/ spreadsheets / etc. It is pointless each of us writing and debugging separate versions of import for legacy Microsoft for instance. The irony is, the best way to get a spreadsheet from oocalc to gnumeric or vice versa is via the XL97 format. H... I know Jody Goldberg has looked at this extensively, it's apparently non-trivial for technical reasons. From what I understand there is no animoisity between the various teams. Cheers, Hal -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: Exchanging copyright for money (Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best)
On Mon, 7 Jun 2004 16:39:28 +1000 Mary Gardiner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm only pointing this out because I'd be interested in the answer, and Erik's last post suggests that he isn't actually an example: he's making money precisely because he IS sole copyright holder and thus can sell licences, not in exchange for his copyright. Thats correct. I've also never had the problem of having people contribute to this project. When and if I ever did, I would be asking for copyright assignment or moving the project to LGPL. Erik -- +---+ Erik de Castro Lopo [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Yes it's valid) +---+ A good debugger is no substitute for a good test suite. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 10:47, Benno wrote: More common with computer programs is the rights assignment. You still own the copyright, but you non-exclusively assign all rights to another party. The FSF rights assignment is a good example. I was under the impression that rights assignment, especially the FSF one is a transfer of copyright. I.e: FSF now owns copyright, and you no longer own copyright. I checked and you're right. The greedy pigs :-) They do have a disclaimer process (you move it to public domain and FSF pick it up from there) but that assumes a formal public domain to start with (something lacking in AU). And a child is a full legal entity, at least in terms of being able to legally own goods. Let's not got there, the powers of guardians and children concerning property are necessarily complex. I was making the point that the entities recognised by the Copyright Act are wider than the entities recognised by the corporations law; in particular, the unincorporated joint venture gives validity to notices such as Copyright Samba Core Team, 2004. This is convenient as the UJV is a useful entity for free software projects (as it makes various liabilities fall out well). Best wishes, Glen -- Glen Turner Tel: (08) 8303 3936 or +61 8 8303 3936 Network Engineer Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australian Academic Research Network www.aarnet.edu.au -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Tue Jun 08, 2004 at 13:58:00 +0930, Glen Turner wrote: On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 10:47, Benno wrote: More common with computer programs is the rights assignment. You sti= ll own the copyright, but you non-exclusively assign all rights to anothe= r party. The FSF rights assignment is a good example. =20 I was under the impression that rights assignment, especially the FSF one is a transfer of copyright. I.e: FSF now owns copyright, and yo= u no longer own copyright. I checked and you're right. The greedy pigs :-) They do have a disclaimer process (you move it to public domain and FSF pick it up from there) but that assumes a formal public domain to start with (something lacking in AU). And a child is a full legal entity, at least in terms of being able to legally own goods. Let's not got there, the powers of guardians and children concerning property are necessarily complex. I was making the point that the entities recognised by the Copyright Act are wider than the entities recognised by the corporations law; in particular, the unincorporated joint venture gives validity to notices such as Copyright =C2=A9 Samba Core Team, 2004. This is convenient as the UJV is a useful entity for free software projects (as it makes various liabilities fall out well). Reading http://www.copyright.org.au/PDF/InfoSheets/G010.pdf implies to me at least that only legal entities can own copyright, and implied that ownership of copyright worked in the same way ownership of other goods. From the factsheet: However, if someone trades under a business name, the correct name to put in the copyright notice is not the business name but the names of the relevant individual or individuals. The reason for this is that a business name is not a legal entity, and does not own property; only individuals and incorporated bodies such as companies can own property (including copyright). To me this implies: 1/ copyright *is* property 2/ only individuals and incorporated bodies can own property. Of course this might be fully in line with what you are saying ;), I'm not sure what you mean as recognised by the corporations law. Benno -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, 2004-06-06 at 15:01, Harald Richard Ashburner wrote: When you assigned copyright to Star Office OOo does this mean that some meanie might be able to get control of this successful product, close the source and change the copyright, freezing you out of the picture altogether and causing much wailing across the FLOSS community? Being involved in OOo, do you have any thoughts about contributing to a project where you don't own your copyright? Are there assurances, is there trust or am I missing the point altogether? You raised an interesting point. The license of OpenOffice.org is LGPL so it is very open to enable people to modify the code and take copies of it. It cannot be closed ever again. The license of Star Office is closed. It is almost 100% the same as OpenOffice.org however. The owner (currently Sun) can take this source base and hide it again from the world, this includes my code. Do I care. No, not really, I believe that the success of StarOffice is directly a success in OpenOffice.org. I and many Linux and Windows users get the benefit of the huge source provided by StarOffice for nothing and that cannot be taken away. Also to be honest the vast majority of code is designed and built in a single Office in Hamburg Germany and will continue to be done at Star Office Hamburg for a considerable time to come. I got involved as a direct result of Jeff W hassling me to become involved. Basically he made me look at what I was interested in and simply pick one. I picked OOo because it had only just been opened and Word Processing always interested me. You may choose something different incorporating you level of care over FOSS licensing, if you hate the possibility of a company owning your work that you gave for free don't work on those projects, pick something else. If like me you simply want the world to be a better place then pick something you think will make it a better place. Word Processing for the masses, hell yeah. Computer Bank to support Bush schools and community groups I am there. (All right I will get there soon, promise :-) ) -- Thanks KenF OpenOffice.org developer -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Mary Gardiner wrote: | On Sun, Jun 06, 2004, David Guest wrote: | | Alternatively are their commercial contracts for assigning | copyright under dual licensing? (e.g. I get one dollar for every | seat where this application is used under a commercial license.) | Or is this too messy to handle in practice? | | | I don't think it makes sense to assign ... copyright under dual | licensing. | | Assigning copyright to me gives me the right to control copying of | the work (ie to licence it however I like). On the other hand, | licencing it to me authorises me to use it (and perhaps copy it) in | particular ways. | | Either can be handed over as part of contractual agreements so you | may get an agreed return for either. snip | But I don't know of any commerical FOSS projects that have this | kind of deal with outside contributors. Thanks Mary. I was just wondering if people like Ken might get an income from the closed license stream in much the same way as Sun gets from Star Office. Not yet sounds like the answer and it may never be practicable. David -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD4DBQFAwv2krI5sriRgbZwRAg5YAJjWm8+WptQnp5zs87zbi1ISyn0WAJwIhXjc KmldO4HRAy8XfP8B7Clv0A== =93p/ -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
quote who=David Guest Thanks Mary. I was just wondering if people like Ken might get an income from the closed license stream in much the same way as Sun gets from Star Office. Not yet sounds like the answer and it may never be practicable. Whoa there, heaps of people do. Ask Erik! :-) - Jeff -- GVADEC 2004: Kristiansand, Norwayhttp://2004.guadec.org/ I came for the quality, but I stayed for the freedom. - Sean Neakums -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 12:36:10PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 11:29:42AM +1000, Andrew Bennetts wrote: This isn't true -- copyright law allows for joint ownership of copyright for a work, i.e. both owners have full rights to copy the work under any licence conditions they wish, independently of each other. Who has standing in the event of infringement? See my other recent missive on the topic for more details of the issues involved. Here's another example of joint ownership -- Zope Corporation's Contributor Agreement: http://dev.zope.org/DevHome/CVS/Contributor.pdf (FAQ at http://dev.zope.org/CVS/ContributorFAQ). In particular, this text makes the answer to your question clear, I think: You and Zope Corporation each agree that the other shall be free to exercise any and all exclusive rights in and to the Contribution, without accounting to one another ... I think the Zope Corporation Contributor Agreement is a pretty clear demonstration of how joint ownership of copyright can work. I think the OpenOffice JCA says the same thing (albeit less clearly) when it says: Contributor hereby assigns to Sun joint ownership in all worldwide common law and statutory rights associated with copyrights ... Contributor retains the right to use the Contribution for Contributor's own purposes. The OpenOffice JCA does seem a bit vague to my non-lawyer eyes -- I'm not sure how broad the Contributor's own purposes can be interpreted to be, but given that the JCA explicitly leaves the Contributor with joint ownership, presumably this extends to being able to fully exercise the rights you already had prior to making the contribution, and being able to do so independently of Sun. Personally, I'd be comfortable with signing either agreement to make contributions (and in fact I have signed the Zope Corp agreement), and I'd be comfortable with exercising my rights on any work I contributed, if I wanted to. -Andrew. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004, Matthew Palmer wrote: While it's true that all creative works automatically have copyright held by the author upon creation, this is a different issue. If I rip off something that has (C) Sun Microsystems on it, and get a letter from J. Random Hacker's landshark requesting cease and desist, I'm going to laugh at it (or, possibly, get my landshark to write a laughing letter back), unless there is a lot more evidence to it than that. Yeah, but whether joint copyight assignment is a sensible and effective way to control copying is an entirely different question from whether it's legal in the first place. Besides, I'm not sure that they'll laugh at my first letter! is a good reason not to do something. People laugh at all kinds of things. Who cares if they laugh? What matters is whether the assignment stands up in court, and that will be pretty much independent of their response to the initial letter. Anyone so easily frightened into observing the terms of your copyright was never such a big problem in the first place. The serious problems are going to be a problem for you and Sun Microsystems regardless of the copyright text. -Mary -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun Jun 06, 2004 at 21:44:21 +1000, Andrew Bennetts wrote: On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 12:36:10PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 11:29:42AM +1000, Andrew Bennetts wrote: This isn't true -- copyright law allows for joint ownership of copyright for a work, i.e. both owners have full rights to copy the work under any licence conditions they wish, independently of each other. Who has standing in the event of infringement? See my other recent missive on the topic for more details of the issues involved. Here's another example of joint ownership -- Zope Corporation's Contributor Agreement: http://dev.zope.org/DevHome/CVS/Contributor.pdf (FAQ at http://dev.zope.org/CVS/ContributorFAQ). I was under the impression that in Australian copyright law there could only be one copyright owner. (That could be either a person or a comany). www.copyright.org.au seems to have lots of information about this. They also have really good fact sheets. One of the ones I read implied that joint copyright was not valid in anyway. In such a case copyright is held by the initial author. I may be wrong, but check out the website, and remember that Australian copyright is not (yet[1]) identical to American copyright law. Benno [1] Until the FTA goes through... -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 10:45:37AM +1000, Benno wrote: On Sun Jun 06, 2004 at 21:44:21 +1000, Andrew Bennetts wrote: Here's another example of joint ownership -- Zope Corporation's Contributor Agreement: http://dev.zope.org/DevHome/CVS/Contributor.pdf (FAQ at http://dev.zope.org/CVS/ContributorFAQ). I was under the impression that in Australian copyright law there could only be one copyright owner. (That could be either a person or a comany). www.copyright.org.au seems to have lots of information about this. They also have really good fact sheets. One of the ones I read implied that joint copyright was not valid in anyway. In such a case copyright is held by the initial author. Their fact sheet titled Ownership of Copyright says on page 5: Can copyright be jointly owned? Yes -- this can happen in two ways: * there may be joint authors of a work -- that is, two or more authors have made indistinguishable contributions to the creation of the work; * you can also agree that copyright will be jointly owned, whether or not the contributions are indistinguishable. For example, some bands decide that everyone in the band will jointly own copyright in all music and lyrics created by band members, even though all the band members may not be joint authors of each piece of music and lyrics. So clearly, joint ownership of copyright is recognised in Australian law. -Andrew. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 10:15, Benno wrote: I was under the impression that in Australian copyright law there could only be one copyright owner. (That could be either a person or a comany). There can be joint ownership. This often happens in bands (ie, all members agree to be copyright holders, whomever actually authored the lyrics, music and arrangement). That way non-author band members aren't ripped off. More common with computer programs is the rights assignment. You still own the copyright, but you non-exclusively assign all rights to another party. The FSF rights assignment is a good example. There is no requirement in Australian copyright law that the copyright holder be a full legal entity -- a child or an unincorporated joint venture can hold copyright. (Conversely, gov't depts don't hold copyright, the state does). They also have really good fact sheets. One of the ones I read implied that joint copyright was not valid in anyway. Hmmm. Got a reference, I looked at the most obvious one, G58 Ownership of Copyright, and with some minor quibbles it seems to be right. Regards, Glen -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Mon Jun 07, 2004 at 10:33:49 +0930, Glen Turner wrote: On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 10:15, Benno wrote: I was under the impression that in Australian copyright law there could only be one copyright owner. (That could be either a person or a comany). There can be joint ownership. This often happens in bands (ie, all members agree to be copyright holders, whomever actually authored the lyrics, music and arrangement). That way non-author band members aren't ripped off. More common with computer programs is the rights assignment. You still own the copyright, but you non-exclusively assign all rights to another party. The FSF rights assignment is a good example. I was under the impression that rights assignment, especially the FSF one is a transfer of copyright. I.e: FSF now owns copyright, and you no longer own copyright. There is no requirement in Australian copyright law that the copyright holder be a full legal entity -- a child or an unincorporated joint venture can hold copyright. (Conversely, gov't depts don't hold copyright, the state does). According to the G10 fact sheet you do. Which is why you can't put business name in the copyright header. (Although company is fine.) And a child is a full legal entity, at least in terms of being able to legally own goods. They also have really good fact sheets. One of the ones I read implied that joint copyright was not valid in anyway. Hmmm. Got a reference, I looked at the most obvious one, G58 Ownership of Copyright, and with some minor quibbles it seems to be right. G10 an introduction to the copyright system, but yes reading G58 it does explicitly state there is such a thing as joint ownership, so I stand corrected ;) Benno -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, 2004-06-06 at 16:02, Ken Foskey wrote: On Sun, 2004-06-06 at 15:01, Harald Richard Ashburner wrote: When you assigned copyright to Star Office OOo does this mean that some meanie might be able to get control of this successful product, close the source and change the copyright, freezing you out of the picture altogether and causing much wailing across the FLOSS community? Being involved in OOo, do you have any thoughts about contributing to a project where you don't own your copyright? Are there assurances, is there trust or am I missing the point altogether? You raised an interesting point. The license of OpenOffice.org is LGPL so it is very open to enable people to modify the code and take copies of it. It cannot be closed ever again. Cool! This sounds like just the sort of assurance that would put a developer at their ease. So how does it work? Who owns the OOo copyright? Is there an OOo foundation? Is it the FSF? Is the owner of that copyright above being 'infiltrated' (for want of a better word. By way of comparison to disperate develepers each having to agree to a change of copyright terms.) On the Sun side do I interepret incorrectly or is ther the 'possibility' of say Sun, or someone to whom Sun might sell their copyright in the future, incorporating a bunch of stuff into StarOffice (with no space in the title, thanks Jeff :) on top of your code, and not release it to OOo? Is that right? Is that any sort of concern? Or do you consider this risk negligible or completely worth running due to the goodness of the OOo package as opposed to say abiword? Thanks again for your thoughts. Kind regards, Hal P.S. As I say I'm fairly new at thinking about this sort of stuff so if I'm on completely the wrong track then that is because I'm a goose rather than trying to stir up trouble with OOo :) As a disclaimer I'm involved in the extreme perifery of Gnumeric which is a thing of beauty and a joy forever and I love it, but I also love OOo. (I use oowriter myself, so a big THANKS! BTW.) The quest is understanding rather than antagonism... -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
Ken Foskey wrote: BSD is the only true Open Source license. This is an interesting quote from an idiot. But I would really like to here other opinions on this. Maybe it is the one true OS license, but maybe we don't actually need or want a 'true OS license' in every case. I know there are thousands of licenses I would like to classify them: a) BSD like - use how you want includes Public Domain. b) LGPL like - for libraries. c) GPL like - can never be used in conjunction with closed programs. d) Corporate - pay for use in many forms - includes shareware. There are many ways to use code, at runtime, linking, directly copying in full or just taking bits of it. I think the Free software licenses are not so much about what you can and can't do, just that you must *always* provide source to anyone else who will 'use' (by normal execution) a work incorporating it. Where GPL and LGPL differ is the definition of 'a work incorporating it', such that software which just calls the existing LGPL code at runtime is not counted as 'incorporating' it, so is not covered by the requirement to provide source. For the record. I believe that LGPL is the only true Open Source license. a) It allows me as a professional programmer to use it anywhere I want. Yeah, but the 'use' you have here may not be not the same as 'use' in all the cases above. b) It obligates the me as a professional programmer to release any patches back to the community. The moral clause it you like. Personally, I'd like to encourage as much open source development as possible, so I'd go with pure GPL for any library code I might want to release. Please play nice! My take on it is that anyone is free to use GPL code for whatever they wish. If they want to give it to someone else, it's not them using it anymore, it's the recipient. Thanks to the GPL, the recipient can then do whatever they like with it too. There is no point where someone is 'not allowed' to do something with the source. Felix -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
quote who=Felix Sheldon My take on it is that anyone is free to use GPL code for whatever they wish. If they want to give it to someone else, it's not them using it anymore, it's the recipient. Thanks to the GPL, the recipient can then do whatever they like with it too. There is no point where someone is 'not allowed' to do something with the source. There are all sorts of things you're not allowed to do with GPL source. :-) - Jeff -- GVADEC 2004: Kristiansand, Norwayhttp://2004.guadec.org/ How was the opera? The seats were very comfortable. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Felix Sheldon My take on it is that anyone is free to use GPL code for whatever they wish. If they want to give it to someone else, it's not them using it anymore, it's the recipient. Thanks to the GPL, the recipient can then do whatever they like with it too. There is no point where someone is 'not allowed' to do something with the source. There are all sorts of things you're not allowed to do with GPL source. :-) - Jeff I can copy it, compile it, run it, modify it, extend it, combine it with other code, delete parts of it, write a novel about it, translate it to some other language, and most importantly, distribute it. What else could you ask for? 8) Felix -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
quote who=Felix Sheldon There are all sorts of things you're not allowed to do with GPL source. :-) I can copy it, compile it, run it, modify it, extend it, combine it with other code, delete parts of it, write a novel about it, translate it to some other language, and most importantly, distribute it. What else could you ask for? 8) Me, generally nothing, but there are some important distinctions you've left out of your list, ie. combine it with other code ... distribute it. But can you? :-) - Jeff -- GVADEC 2004: Kristiansand, Norwayhttp://2004.guadec.org/ I think hot Chinese girls who kick ass are the wave of the future, as far as films go. - Cody Russell -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Felix Sheldon There are all sorts of things you're not allowed to do with GPL source. :-) I can copy it, compile it, run it, modify it, extend it, combine it with other code, delete parts of it, write a novel about it, translate it to some other language, and most importantly, distribute it. What else could you ask for? 8) Me, generally nothing, but there are some important distinctions you've left out of your list, ie. combine it with other code ... distribute it. But can you? :-) combine it with other code Sure! Even the stolen Win2k source if I had it! distribute it Of course! I am talking about GPL code here. combine it with other code + distribute it Nothing in the GPL rules it out. Maybe the license on the other code says something about it, but the GPL doesn't. Felix -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sat, 2004-06-05 at 16:53, Felix Sheldon wrote: combine it with other code + distribute it Nothing in the GPL rules it out. Maybe the license on the other code says something about it, but the GPL doesn't. Actually, the GPL 'no other constraints may be imposed' is the reason one often cannot combine ship. I.e. one cannot ship vanilla GPL code linked with openssl. Rob -- GPG key available at: http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sat, 2004-06-05 at 16:00, Felix Sheldon wrote: There are many ways to use code, at runtime, linking, directly copying in full or just taking bits of it. I think the Free software licenses are not so much about what you can and can't do, just that you must *always* provide source to anyone else who will 'use' (by normal execution) a work incorporating it. Erm, thats not the definition of the GPL or LGPL. The GPL's key thing is that you must always make the the source *available should it be wanted*. (This is quite different). Rob -- GPG key available at: http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
Robert Collins wrote: On Sat, 2004-06-05 at 16:53, Felix Sheldon wrote: combine it with other code + distribute it Nothing in the GPL rules it out. Maybe the license on the other code says something about it, but the GPL doesn't. Actually, the GPL 'no other constraints may be imposed' is the reason one often cannot combine ship. I.e. one cannot ship vanilla GPL code linked with openssl. The author of openssl could do it if he/she/they wanted to, so it's not entirely impossible. :) Felix -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
Robert Collins wrote: On Sat, 2004-06-05 at 16:00, Felix Sheldon wrote: There are many ways to use code, at runtime, linking, directly copying in full or just taking bits of it. I think the Free software licenses are not so much about what you can and can't do, just that you must *always* provide source to anyone else who will 'use' (by normal execution) a work incorporating it. Erm, thats not the definition of the GPL or LGPL. The GPL's key thing is that you must always make the the source *available should it be wanted*. (This is quite different). True, but I meant the '*always*' to be in relation to whether you have done this or that with the code. If doing something with the code means you cannot provide the source, then you cannot distribute the GPL code. It's not the GPL stopping you, it's your inability to provide the source. Whether they want it or not you still have to provide (make available) the source. Felix -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
quote who=Brad Kowalczyk Just one small Q, lets say I develop an app and release it under say the GPL, if I then improve on this app adding new features and functionality and wish to make a $ with it can I then release it under a shudderclosed source/shudder license even though it is heavily based on GPL'd code? Because you hold the copyright, yes. Here's an example: Ximian wrote the Evolution groupware suite, so hold the copyright. They require copyright attribution from contributors so that they continue to hold copyright over the complete work. That allowed them to ship Evolution with the Exchange connector (which until a few weeks ago, was closed). If their contributors had not assigned copyright, Ximian would not be able to ship a proprietary module along with their contributor's code. Quite a few projects work in a similar fashion (FSF/GNU-backed projects, Twisted, etc). If you hold the copyright, you can do whatever the hell you want. When you accept contributions under the GPL, you no longer hold complete copyright; your project becomes a 'collaborative work' (I don't think collaborative is the right legal word though). Fun stuff. ;-) - Jeff -- GVADEC 2004: Kristiansand, Norwayhttp://2004.guadec.org/ Orphaned farm-boy hero helps save world against bad-guys, begins a journey of self-discovery, and makes interesting friends. Passable. - Andrew Bennetts on Star Wars -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sat, 2004-06-05 at 13:06, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Ken Foskey For the record. I believe that LGPL is the only true Open Source license. Don't go down this road. Open Source and Free Software have definitions. Aye. The Open Source Definition is at www.opensource.org. You will note that shareware applications, and things you can legally obtain source code for (like QMail, Pine, and Windows) are not Open Source. Mike -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Jeff Waugh wrote: | quote who=Brad Kowalczyk | | Just one small Q, lets say I develop an app and release it under | say the GPL, if I then improve on this app adding new features | and functionality and wish to make a $ with it can I then release | it under a shudderclosed source/shudder license even though | it is heavily based on GPL'd code? | | | Because you hold the copyright, yes. | | Here's an example: | | Ximian wrote the Evolution groupware suite, so hold the copyright. | They require copyright attribution from contributors so that they | continue to hold copyright over the complete work. That allowed | them to ship Evolution with the Exchange connector (which until a | few weeks ago, was closed). | | If their contributors had not assigned copyright, Ximian would not | be able to ship a proprietary module along with their contributor's | code. Quite a few projects work in a similar fashion | (FSF/GNU-backed projects, Twisted, etc). Jeff A few questions if I may. Are there any projects where subsequent developers have also dual licensed their contributions under the GPL and a closed source license? Essentially they would trying to do the same as Ximian or MySQL, viz. have an income stream from commercial extension and application while making their code freely available under the GPL. Alternatively are their commercial contracts for assigning copyright under dual licensing? (e.g. I get one dollar for every seat where this application is used under a commercial license.) Or is this too messy to handle in practice? David - -- PGP public key 0x24606D9C at pgp.mit.edu 56D7 3608 6D73 0E11 064E 79C8 AC8E 6CAE 2460 6D9C -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFAwlLirI5sriRgbZwRAhJjAJ4/CUMffwHZQp62DVUfI0y0HTQlfgCfTCEB 7GfkGxCUi4SIsRcP8m2lzPw= =/e2T -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004, David Guest wrote: Alternatively are their commercial contracts for assigning copyright under dual licensing? (e.g. I get one dollar for every seat where this application is used under a commercial license.) Or is this too messy to handle in practice? I don't think it makes sense to assign ... copyright under dual licensing. Assigning copyright to me gives me the right to control copying of the work (ie to licence it however I like). On the other hand, licencing it to me authorises me to use it (and perhaps copy it) in particular ways. Either can be handed over as part of contractual agreements so you may get an agreed return for either. In fact, in the academic world it is common practice when you publish a paper to give the publisher copyright in return for a licence for noncommercial distribution of your paper[1]. But you don't assign copyright under particular licences. Either you give them copyright, assigning them complete control over the right to copy your work, or you give them a licence, assigning them a specified, limited amount of control over the right to copy your work. So, assuming you're talking about dual licencing, not copyright assignment, wouldn't this be pretty much the same as the distribution model the game industry uses: here have a licence to distribute my game, give me $X for every sale? In this case there would be two licences specified in the contract. But I don't know of any commerical FOSS projects that have this kind of deal with outside contributors. -Mary [1] Not all academic presses are this nice, some will require copyright assignment and will not licence your work back to you at all. You can buy a copy like everyone else. Why do people agree to such terms? Because the publication process is a professional reputation game, and if you don't publish enough, you may not keep your job. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
It's horses for courses, and sometimes none of the open source licenses are exactly what you're looking for. Case in point. I wrote an app some years ago. Never mind what it does, but it has a GUI. Some people ported it to Windows. Some people ported it to a Mac. I don't own a Windows box and I will probably never own a Mac. I keep getting a lot of support e-mails for it saying I run this on a Mac and push the X button and Y happens can you tell me what's going wrong. I have no idea, it doesn't do that on Unix. So I ended up having to hand-craft an open source license by hacking about with bits of the BSD license but sort of in reverse so I could say something like you can freely copy this app and give it away. You can make modified versions of it and give those away too, but if you do you must remove my name and contact details from every file in that modified version. I couldn't find any existing open source license that did that (at the time, I believe there are some that have appeared since), so I had to write my own. Other apps I've written have been released under the GPL, BSD, LGPL, or as public domain, whatever seemed like it suited it best at the time. www.opensource.org is a good place to start. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, 2004-06-06 at 09:40, Mary Gardiner wrote: I don't think it makes sense to assign ... copyright under dual licensing. You as author can assign copyright for use to multiple parties. I have assigned copyright to Star Office and also OpenOffice.org when I signed a long time ago. David, GPL is very specific, you cannot create a license that says that you cannot use it in a commercial instance. You can say that you must use it in GPL software only. This means that it cannot go closed ever again. This is the normal way for vendors to control the release of software. -- Thanks KenF OpenOffice.org developer -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 10:56:00AM +1000, Ken Foskey wrote: On Sun, 2004-06-06 at 09:40, Mary Gardiner wrote: I don't think it makes sense to assign ... copyright under dual licensing. You as author can assign copyright for use to multiple parties. I That's a permissive licence grant to each of those parties. It's not assignment of copyright over the work. If you had actually assigned copyright to one of those parties, you would have not had the right to assign it to any other parties subsequent (absent a licence grant to do so from the now-copyright holder of the work). From my understanding, there can only be one copyright holder over a specific creative work. When two or more entities both claim copyright over a work, they're actually claiming rights over different parts of the work. Identifying whose parts are whose isn't always possible, but that's not an issue in the case under discussion. - Matt -- We are peaking sexually when they are peaking. And two peaks makes a hell of a good mount. -- SMH -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004, Ken Foskey wrote: GPL is very specific, you cannot create a license that says that you cannot use it in a commercial instance. More specifically, the GPL is itself copyright *and not modifiable*. At the top it reads: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php In other words, you cannot add and subtract clauses from the GPL to make your own custom GPL. (Nor can you do this and call it something else: calling it Mary's Super Special Licence doesn't stop it being a copyright violation.) If you want to create a GPL-like licence with a you cannot use this product commercially clause, then you cannot do this by modifying the GPL. Instead you should either look for another licence or draw one up yourself (or better, get an IP lawyer to do it). -Mary -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004, Matthew Palmer wrote: From my understanding, there can only be one copyright holder over a specific creative work. When two or more entities both claim copyright over a work, they're actually claiming rights over different parts of the work. Identifying whose parts are whose isn't always possible, but that's not an issue in the case under discussion. Many many FOSS projects with commericial partners are pioneering Joint Copyright Agreements, see for example: http://www.netbeans.org/about/legal/jca.html Many open source projects, including the Free Software Foundation, Red Hat and OpenOffice.org require that contributors assign their copyright when they contribute code. Sun, the NetBeans project sponsor, has come up with an innovative Joint Copyright Assignment (JCA) that allows contributors to retain their own copyright while sharing a joint copyright interest in the contributed code. This way contributors retain all the rights granted by copyright law while sharing those rights with the open source project sponsor so that the code is protected by both the Sun Public License (SPL) and copyright law. -Mary -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 11:08:17AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: From my understanding, there can only be one copyright holder over a specific creative work. When two or more entities both claim copyright over a work, they're actually claiming rights over different parts of the work. Identifying whose parts are whose isn't always possible, but that's not an issue in the case under discussion. This isn't true -- copyright law allows for joint ownership of copyright for a work, i.e. both owners have full rights to copy the work under any licence conditions they wish, independently of each other. OpenOffice.org appears to exactly this arrangement for its contributions: see the FAQ entries about their Joint Copyright Assignment at http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/faq-licensing.html#jca1 -Andrew. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 11:27:46AM +1000, Mary Gardiner wrote: On Sun, Jun 06, 2004, Matthew Palmer wrote: From my understanding, there can only be one copyright holder over a specific creative work. When two or more entities both claim copyright over a work, they're actually claiming rights over different parts of the work. Identifying whose parts are whose isn't always possible, but that's not an issue in the case under discussion. Many many FOSS projects with commericial partners are pioneering Joint Copyright Agreements, see for example: http://www.netbeans.org/about/legal/jca.html Of more interest is the meat of the agreement itself, which mentions Joint Ownership in all worldwide common law and statutory right associated with the copyrights [...], and then later states Contributor retains the right to use the Contribution for Contributor's own purposes. Smells like you're handing Sun the copyright, and they're giving you back an unlimited (presumably, but not explicitly, transferrable) anything goes licence. In the FAQ they do mention getting your name put into the copyright credits for the work your contribution is made to, but the FAQ says that's not practical. I'd be worried about signing over my copyrights to any commercial entity without a much clearer statement of what, exactly, I was signing over and what I retained. The problem with Joint Ownership of a copyrightable work is the issue of standing to contest. Who has the right to bring suit for copyright violation? If I have joint ownership of a work, can either of the owners sue a violator? Does it take agreement of both owners? Can both owners bring suit separately, so that the violator has to fight two suits for the one infringement? Strength in suit is one of the reasons some projects require copyright assignment, but having joint ownership erodes all of that. You'll spend half your time arguing about issues of standing. - Matt -- All I care about [a linux distro] is it detect my hardware (non-Debian strengths), and teach me to fish instead of just giving me a smelly old fish (most people 'xcept Debian), and I guess don't just give me a fish biology textbook (gentoo). -- Tom (in d-devel) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 11:29:42AM +1000, Andrew Bennetts wrote: On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 11:08:17AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: From my understanding, there can only be one copyright holder over a specific creative work. When two or more entities both claim copyright over a work, they're actually claiming rights over different parts of the work. Identifying whose parts are whose isn't always possible, but that's not an issue in the case under discussion. This isn't true -- copyright law allows for joint ownership of copyright for a work, i.e. both owners have full rights to copy the work under any licence conditions they wish, independently of each other. Who has standing in the event of infringement? See my other recent missive on the topic for more details of the issues involved. OpenOffice.org appears to exactly this arrangement for its contributions: see the FAQ entries about their Joint Copyright Assignment at http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/faq-licensing.html#jca1 Looks like the NetBeans FAQ, with more meat. In particular, I'd like to know their basis for it not being legally necessary to show copyright interest in a work. While it's true that all creative works automatically have copyright held by the author upon creation, this is a different issue. If I rip off something that has (C) Sun Microsystems on it, and get a letter from J. Random Hacker's landshark requesting cease and desist, I'm going to laugh at it (or, possibly, get my landshark to write a laughing letter back), unless there is a lot more evidence to it than that. Good revision control log messages will help there, but I wouldn't want to rely on that if I was trying to sue someone for wilful infringement. - Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Off Topic? - Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 not sure if im correct, but i think this thread is more ontopic in the slug-chat list, but im sure debating licensing isnt ontopic for a linux discussion list. anyone with higher authority want to clarrify? not trying to stiffle debate but just trying to classify it Dean David Guest wrote: | Jeff Waugh wrote: | | | quote who=Brad Kowalczyk | | | | Just one small Q, lets say I develop an app and release it under | | say the GPL, if I then improve on this app adding new features | | and functionality and wish to make a $ with it can I then release | | it under a shudderclosed source/shudder license even though | | it is heavily based on GPL'd code? | | | | | | Because you hold the copyright, yes. | | | | Here's an example: | | | | Ximian wrote the Evolution groupware suite, so hold the copyright. | | They require copyright attribution from contributors so that they | | continue to hold copyright over the complete work. That allowed | | them to ship Evolution with the Exchange connector (which until a | | few weeks ago, was closed). | | | | If their contributors had not assigned copyright, Ximian would not | | be able to ship a proprietary module along with their contributor's | | code. Quite a few projects work in a similar fashion | | (FSF/GNU-backed projects, Twisted, etc). | | Jeff | | A few questions if I may. | | Are there any projects where subsequent developers have also dual | licensed their contributions under the GPL and a closed source | license? Essentially they would trying to do the same as Ximian or | MySQL, viz. have an income stream from commercial extension and | application while making their code freely available under the GPL. | | Alternatively are their commercial contracts for assigning copyright | under dual licensing? (e.g. I get one dollar for every seat where this | application is used under a commercial license.) Or is this too messy | to handle in practice? | | David | | -- | PGP public key 0x24606D9C at pgp.mit.edu | 56D7 3608 6D73 0E11 064E 79C8 AC8E 6CAE 2460 6D9C | | -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFAwpXqI1HDX08lY+ARAlkSAJ9WOS4Iz5s3CJVvufa9oU1orDb9QwCePcOq uPw1N2HNm42FP6Z0cptTQG0= =4qzT -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 11:23:41AM +1000, Mary Gardiner wrote: On Sun, Jun 06, 2004, Ken Foskey wrote: GPL is very specific, you cannot create a license that says that you cannot use it in a commercial instance. More specifically, the GPL is itself copyright *and not modifiable*. At the top it reads: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php In other words, you cannot add and subtract clauses from the GPL to make your own custom GPL. (Nor can you do this and call it something else: calling it Mary's Super Special Licence doesn't stop it being a copyright violation.) But see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL. - Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
Ken Foskey said: snip You as author can assign copyright for use to multiple parties. I have assigned copyright to Star Office and also OpenOffice.org when I signed a long time ago. Hi Ken, This raises an interesting question. Now as a disclaimer I promise you that I am interested in your thoughts and not trolling :) When you assigned copyright to Star Office OOo does this mean that some meanie might be able to get control of this successful product, close the source and change the copyright, freezing you out of the picture alltogether and causing much wailing accross the FLOSS community? Being involved in OOo, do you have any thoughts about contributing to a project where you don't own your copyright? Are there assurances, is there trust or am I missing the point altogether? -- Kind regards, Hal Ashburner -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
quote who=Harald Richard Ashburner When you assigned copyright to Star Office OOo does this mean that some meanie might be able to get control of this successful product, close the source and change the copyright, freezing you out of the picture alltogether and causing much wailing accross the FLOSS community? That'd be StarOffice. :-) Although, without so much of the freezing and wailing thus far. - Jeff -- GVADEC 2004: Kristiansand, Norwayhttp://2004.guadec.org/ It's my head, Schwartz - it's my head! - John Malkovich -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Which open source license is best
BSD is the only true Open Source license. This is an interesting quote from an idiot. But I would really like to here other opinions on this. I know there are thousands of licenses I would like to classify them: a) BSD like - use how you want includes Public Domain. b) LGPL like - for libraries. c) GPL like - can never be used in conjunction with closed programs. d) Corporate - pay for use in many forms - includes shareware. For the record. I believe that LGPL is the only true Open Source license. a) It allows me as a professional programmer to use it anywhere I want. b) It obligates the me as a professional programmer to release any patches back to the community. The moral clause it you like. Please play nice! -- Thanks KenF OpenOffice.org developer -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
quote who=Ken Foskey For the record. I believe that LGPL is the only true Open Source license. Don't go down this road. Open Source and Free Software have definitions. You may feel that the LGPL is an excellent choice for your intent with a particular piece of software, but use an MIT license for something else, and that's okay. There's nothing True or untrue about either - it's all FOSS anyway. Choosing the right FOSS license will always be a compromise between what you want to achieve technically, your moral perspective on software freedom, who you want using it in which way, etc. There's no one answer. [ Me? I much prefer the GPL and the LGPL for my own output, when I have the choice. But that's because I'm a commercial whore, bartering style. :-) ] - Jeff -- GVADEC 2004: Kristiansand, Norwayhttp://2004.guadec.org/ Once this door opens, happiness waits for us. I wush to meet happiness as soon as possible by opening the door with key. Can you follow this change? Willfully darling! - from engrish.com -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
BSD is the only true Open Source license. This is an interesting quote from an idiot. But I would really like to here other opinions on this. Other opinions on what? True Open Source? Your licence classification scheme below? If you mean True Open Source, then I think this debate is a bit loaded for me. I'm not much of a One True Way person. I'm still of the that's nice of them! camp: They let me distribute it? That's nice of them, they don't have to do that! If you want opinions on what licences we like, here's mine: - for example code: as loose as possible, looser than LGPL. If my code aims to give people an idea of how to write a certain kind of code, I don't want them to worry about when something is or isn't a derived work; - for small scripts: BSD or MIT for similar reasons to example code; and - for larger projects: LGPL or GPL, because I tend to be interested in the health of the project more than the ability of people to use the code for whatever purpose they like (distributing the code is healthy for the project, distributing changes is healthy, but making a closed source fork isn't because it won't help the project grow). -Mary -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best
On Sat Jun 05, 2004 at 12:13:13 +1000, Ken Foskey wrote: BSD is the only true Open Source license. This is an interesting quote from an idiot. But I would really like to here other opinions on this. I know there are thousands of licenses I would like to classify them: a) BSD like - use how you want includes Public Domain. b) LGPL like - for libraries. c) GPL like - can never be used in conjunction with closed programs. d) Corporate - pay for use in many forms - includes shareware. For the record. I believe that LGPL is the only true Open Source license. a) It allows me as a professional programmer to use it anywhere I want. b) It obligates the me as a professional programmer to release any patches back to the community. The moral clause it you like. Please play nice! BSD and public domain are different. BSD allows you to retain your copyright, whereas public domain does not. That said, to me a license is a tool, and, like any tool, there is no universal right or best one, it entirely depends on the project and motivations for releasing the code. I most prefer BSD because I think my code is good, and useful, and having it used anywhere, including a commercial project, is a good thing[tm]. Benno -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
