--- On Sat, 1/8/11, David Bovill <da...@vaudevillecourt.tv> wrote:
> [snip]
>
> Thanks for taking the time to respond - my interest is in
> real business
> models built around licenses, or other legal innovations -
> and not the
> politics :)**
>
Well, now that the topic has come up, I have a few questions regarding open
source licenses which the community may provide better insight into.
Let's assume I want to make available a new Quartam Smurf Library for LiveCode,
as open source. Ignore the Intellectual Property rights of Peyo for a second,
it's just the first thing I could think of - I'll leave it up to the
psychologists on this list to examine my insanity from that :-)
Anyway, Quartam Smurf Library offers a set of commands and functions to do with
Smurfs. Let's say it covers the original 100 Smurfs. I want to give the rest of
the community the opportunity to add support for the newer Smurfs that were
added afterwards. The library has a number of 'core' commands and functions
that are scripted as 'private' and are used by all 'public' commands and
functions for the initial 100 Smurfs.
My main goals:
- to make sure that I get proper attribution for my work
- to make sure that anyone who uses the library shares their modifications with
the rest of the community
- to run an open community around the library to incorporate the welcome
changes into new versions of the library
- to also accommodate those LiveCode-using developers whose corporate policy
prevents them from using anything GPL/LGPL/AGPL, by offering it in a commercial
license as well
My main concerns:
- it needs to cover Desktop, Mobile, Server and Web plug-in deployments
- it shouldn't be a viral license that requires the whole program to be open
source under the same license, just the modifications and extensions of the
library
- it should prevent commercial 'wrapping' of the library (*)
(*) what I mean by wrapping: some devious individual could decide to make a
derivative version of Quartam Smurf Library, exposing just those core 'private'
commands and functions by making them 'public' - thus enabling them to write a
'wrapper' library which is closed source and commercial, not sharing their
extensions but making a profit of the work of the contributors.
In short, I'm willing to share my initial work, but others should also share
their modifications and extensions with the community.
So far I haven't found the right license for this.
- MIT is too liberal for this, I think
- GPL is viral so out of the question
- LGPL is close but its goal conflicts with Server and Web plug-in
- AGPL has also turned out to be viral, after re-reading it a few times
- MPL might be a candidate, but I'm not sure if it covers all the concerns
Can you guys and gals help me out?
Thanks in advance for the feedback!
Jan Schenkel.
=====
Quartam Reports & PDF Library for LiveCode
www.quartam.com
=====
"As we grow older, we grow both wiser and more foolish at the same time." (La
Rochefoucauld)
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