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LGPL and Licensing Freedom?
Father asks: "I'm trying to develop a cross platform alternative to ASP (Active Server Pages) based on Object Pascal (Delphi) and have hemmed and hawed for some time over licenses. I want to LGPL, but I would also like to create a commercial version (binary only) compiled from the LGPL version. My idea is to keep a register of contributors and their activity, and pay them a gratuity for assisting in the GPL version provided they post updates/fixes to my site, and they are 'accepted' for the primary distribution." Sounds like an interesting idea. Would a BSD-style license allow something like this or is the LGPL good enough?" (More)
mike
mjohnson@davesworld.net "
"...I do not want to hinder other distributions, but create an LGPL product that can also help pay those heating bills. Basically I want the software to work like a journal... great good and all, but a little spare change doesn't hurt.
I know there are a host of License buffs out there on /. and I am hoping to at least get an idea as to whether I'm heading down the right road. If not, perhaps I'll just leave it at LGPL and go along my merry way.
Please help,mike
mjohnson@davesworld.net "
1) What it is designed to do and what it does can be (and I think are) two different things.
2) When you give license to someone to do something (eg, copy your code), you've effectively taken away your right to have a court punish that person for doing that. In the case of a license like the GPL which hold as long as your copyrights do, the GPL has taken some of your rights away (given that you chose to use it, of course). Let's not debate whether it is the license or the licensor doing it - that would just be word play.)
It is the responsibility of the copyright holder to defend the copyright from infringement. If you fail to do so for long enough, then other parties can start claiming rights.
This is confused. It is true that only the copyright holder has standing to bring an infringement suit. But it is not true that the copyright holder loses any rights by failing to defend vigorously. Copyright doesn't work that way; patents and trade secrets and trademarks do. The only concern would be that if you expect to collect damages and attorney fees from the other side you should register the copyright and send a nasty letter to the infringer within the first three years of her infringement.
Wow! What insight...
/. today.
Also, you should stop giving money to charity, because Bill might just BUY the charity and take all their money, and then kill your parents, and it would be okay because Bill would own the charity and the space aliens would cover it all up...
Oh, wait, you're just another stupid troll. Good thing I wasn't busy when I stopped to you.
You can't BUY a charitable organisation, and you can't change the byelaws of a foundation like the FSF to suit the needs of a corporation, it's easily the STUPIDEST thing I've seen suggested on
it doesn't say that.
ASP (as I understand it) is, like most things by microsoft, an API. ASP allows the server to provide a few objects and runtime environment to a language (JavaScript, VBScript, PerlScript, vIRCScript) which is compatible with the Scripting Host (IIS).
ASP alone doesn't do anything except server side includes. ASP defaults to VisualBasic (unless you override the default), so people often confuse it with what would be a visualbasic scripted page. ASP could contain JSP references (java server pages), but JSP can't efficiently contain any random language the way asp can (unless one of the java applets happens to be written for microsoft's JVM and is just an interface to WSH w/ a parameter string).
PHP is another language, similar to Perl CGI script in that it is (or was) a scripted language w/ a specific etensible code base.
There are ports of ASP to other platforms and servers.
JSP, java server pages is a markup which enables output from java programs to be embedded inside the returned page.
... IMO: It would be nice to have a real pascal scripting language.
The original poster should look into virc script, as it was written in Delphi, is available to WSH, and exposes much of Delphi (w/ some c++ syntax).--While I haven't tried to use ASP w/ vircscript, it would work, and it would feel like delphi.
Perhaps I am unenlightened, but consider this scenario:
Suppose I am the original author of libfrob, a library of insanely useful things that I release both under the GPL and retain the exclusive rights to distribute libfrob to commercial and/or closed source developers. This basically means that now I have lots of open source developers working for me: I can integrate their changes and charge my commercial customers for the work they have done on my behalf. No one else is allowed that particular freedom, no matter how much work they contribute to the project. The BSD License is often criticized for allowing commercial vendors from benefitting from the work of free software authors, but in this case I fail to see how the GPL does _anything_ to prevent it. Indeed, in the GPL case, only the original author has unique rights to sell versions of the software, while in the BSD License EVERYONE has the rights to create, sell, or give away the results of their efforts.
It is my understanding that the original copyright holder has the copyright to all derived works. That's why all contributed code segments, even if they form the majority of the code, are effectively donations to the original copyright holder.
The GPL guarantees that the contributors never lose the right to their code segments (and the original code base). However, the original copyright holder can issue a closed-source edition of the code with the contributions in it.
So, as far as I understand, Linus Torvalds could release a closed-source edition of Linux because he still is the owner of Linux, but he can't prevent the free software version from living on.
Marko
I could make a commercial product from that as well as yourself. Even worse with BSD.
Best bet seems GPL and negotiate with each contributor individually for a license of his source. Or choose something like the QPL wich forces relicensing. (if they use binary distribution)
Instead of GPL'ing, use a *free* license...
From what I gather, this is something that provides a way of managing state between transactions with an easy programatic model. If that's true, then it also competes with WebObjects.
If we need "software hoarders" to get certain software for free so be it... anything GPL is free software even in your definition, by chasing people away YOU are the one not doing the free software community any service.
Right, and you can both GPL it and release it to the public domain too, but do you understand the consequences multiple licensing? What good does it do you? If you use "public" licenses (ie, ones without the licensee's name on it) people have effectively been given "license" to do whatever both licenses allow. Sort of a "OR" operation, if you catch my drift. I suspect that most of these dual-public-licensing schemes would make an IP lawyer laugh. Now, dual or multiple private licenses are a whole nother game....
Well, first off users of new official GNU tools wouldn't be getting the source of new versions.
Secondly, people who used the GPL but forgot to make reference to the GPL version number in their referrence to it, will find that all of the code they have previously distributed is now under a new license. Read the little poison pill near the end of the GPL for details. And don't forget to use the GPL version number. Better yet, use your own license that doesn't refer to the FSF in it. (But don't just copy and modify the GPL, because the license text isn't "free" in the FSF sense.)
write your own license. Make it like a BSD/GPL combo where you can sell the binaries but anyone who makes a variation off of the source must make their source public under the same conditions you did.
If you wish to sell binary only versions of your software why even get involved with GPL or LGPL? It seems to me that you are more interested in working around them than in keeping your code free. One of the other losing "Open Source" licenses would suit your duplicious purposes better. You are a software hoarder who does not belong in the free software community.
You can very easily release your code under two seperate licenses. You can [L]GPL it and BSD it if you'd like. You are the copyright holder and remain in full control of how you license your works.
The question is not whether he can use multiple licenses. Obviously the copyright holder can do whatever they wish. The question was on how to handle contributions from other parties. He has full control over his own source code -- but without agreement from contributors, he cannot make use of their changes/additions.
Instead, release it under the GPL and specify on your homepage (or whatever) that it also is available under other licenses for commercial use. When you then get a request from someone who wants to include it in a closed source product you are free to license it to them under any terms you agree upon.
However, that demands that you either remains the one and only copyright holder of your product or that you get anyone who submits you patches to accept that you also can release the code under whatever additional license you see fit. This is generally not a problem for minor patches, people tend to accept that, as long as you continue to maintain a GPL version. Make sure to state VERY clearly that any patches that are sent to you might be released under other licenses as well, that might save you a lot of trouble later on in case of a missunderstanding.
The only real disadvantage is that you can't include previously GPL:ed code that might prove usefull (unless you can contact all the contributors to that code and get their acceptance). Also, if you loose your status as maintainer of your product (someone forks the GPL version and gets accepted as the new maintainer by the community), you might not get any usefull contributions anymore, but that is a risk you have to take and as long as you do a good job as the maintainer, the risk is very small. You can minimize that risk by trademarking the name of your product, that way they can't fork it and use the same name unless you allow them.
The BSD License (with advertisements) works best in this case. It gives you the freedom to utilize other's contributions. It would also give you the freedom to not pay a royalty to contributors should that eventually become a managerial or other kind of nightmare :)
It doesn't say that.
See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The BSD license is best because it's short, simple, clear, unambiguous, and fair.
If you want to create a reference implementation or framework, and your mission is to promote the standard protocol or language embodied in that framework, then the BSD license is a great choice. After all, in this situation you don't mind a commercial vendor picking up your code base and not contributing changes back to the community. You are just happy that they are advancing the standard. This is the mission and the achievement of the internet plumbing pieces that Brett cites in his post.
If however, your mission is to create an implementation that will remain open to the community (presumably based on standards that are well established and don't need further help), then the GPL is an excellent choice, since it will encourage improvements and changes to keep flowing back into the original code base, and protect the code base from being hijacked into binary only products, (unless of course some arrangement has been made with the copyright holders of the GPLed code).
On the gripping hand, if your mission is to make big wodges of cash, then you'll probably want to keep your development closed, and sell binary copies under an obnoxious UCITA-friendly shrink wrapped license.
It does not seem to me that a programmer who wants to encourage his colleagues to contribute to a project should adopt a license whose explicit purpose is "ban" them from making a better living than a grad student!
I think you misread the motivation. I can make big wodges of cash by picking up a sawed off shotgun and visiting a few of my local banks. Yet for some reason, society "bans" me from engaging in this wholesome and profitable activity. RMS seems to feel that, being as the vast majority of software technique is a common pool developed by the contributions of thousands, arbitrarily walling off portions of the noosphere on the grounds of patent and copyright might be a little like robbing the intellectual bank. You can argue the specifics of how society might best encourage innovation, while at the same time not choking the golden goose of a free enchange of ideas, but please, lets not invoke base motives here. It seems to me that RMS himself has done considerably better in his financial life than the average grad student.
Remember, 80% of software development is of custom code that is valuable only to one specific customer anyway, so none of that work is going to be imperiled by the red menace of the GPL. On the contrary, the wide availability of quality, community maintained tools and infrastructure should only make our lives as programmer more productive and pleasent, since we no longer have to labor with black box APIs that are changed at the whim of incrutable marketing departments...
i think i read somewhere in the GPL that in the process of GPL'ing the code, you give the copyright to the FSF.
Is that your final answer? Would you like to use your lifeline? ;)
No sorry, that is incorrect. You have confused the policy of the FSF, which is to get copyright on all contributions to projects they maintain assigned to themselves, and the language of the GPL itself.
You can most certainly GPL code, and keep the copyright to yourself. This is the situation with, for example, the Linux kernel. The result of this situation is that after awhile, it becomes quite impractical to determine who holds the copyright to what part of the codebase. This is not a problem if it is not desired to distributed the code under a different license as well (and this is the case with the Linux kernel)
However for those, such as the poster, or Cygnus, or Aladdin, who want to be able to release a GPL version of their project, and also make money by licensing their codebase to binary-only folk, it is essential that they retain sole copyright on their codebase. This is accomplished by asking patch contributors to formally assign their copyright to the project maintainer.
The FSF also requires copyright assignment. In their case, the justification is that in the event of a legal dispute, they would be in a position to prosecute any violations of the GPL on their projects without needing to involve anybody else.
Summary: you continue to hold copyright on any code you place under the GPL, unless you specifically assign that copyright to someone else (for whatever reason)
Essentially true...
It is the responsibility of the copyright holder to defend the copyright from infringement. If you fail to do so for long enough, then other parties can start claiming rights. This is why so many Big Media Corporationstm err on the side of rabid lawyers attacks when their copyrighted properties are being used. Even when the actual use falls under fair use provisions. After all, their lawyers are on retainer, so its only you that has to spend money to defend yourself. But I digress...
The GPL is based on the notion of using existing copyright to provide legal teeth to the basic "play nice" notion of copyleft. So in order to mount a legal defense of a particular work, it would have to be undertaken by the copyright holder(s) of that work.
It's all true! We commie bastiches will not rest until every red blooded American "programmer" is out on the street begging for used DIMMs.
But not just yet... First I have to go re-line my football helmet with tinfoil!
Meanwhile, I'm eagerly awaiting TomC to weigh in on the immorality inherent in the system!
As to the language issue, he (and I) may find C as ugly as you apparently find Pascal. And C++ bears all the signs of committee work.
Leaving aside personal opinions and aesthetics, however, Pascal is a more straightforward language to parse than C or C++, and is relatively pure on the Borland branch. C would be better than C++, as it would avoid tremendous complexities, but another issue lurks: C, C++, and Java all muddy the same syntactic pool. An approach based on Pascal would not represent yet another pollution of C-flavored syntax.
--- Bill
There's already PHP - a crossplatform alternative to ASP. Why not help them instead of starting all over, using a Pascal-ish language (ugh)? Because of the money?
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
How many rights you require people to assign to you before you accept the patch is up to you. You might choose to only require some subset of the rights be signed over to you, if that would "sweeten" the deal and get more people to work with you.
The LGPL doesn't really do what he wants, since it allows the library to be used in commercial closed source applications (since it is only linked in). GPL is really what he would want in order to retain the freedom to require commercial companies to pay for the use of his library.
Microsoft's spokesperson for ASP said:
:)
So, let's try it slowly:
ASP = language independant object toolkit for writing server side web applications
PHP = combination of a new high level scripting language and a way of embedding it in HTML and having an http server execute it.
Zend = free language independent parsing engine for writing server side web applications, powers PHP4
ASP is a well thought out object model that gives access to session maintenance at a range of persistence levels and scopes, as well as cached, efficient DB connections, and feature rich objects that handle HTTP transactions.
Feature rich objects, now with 40% more widgets!
Session management is built into PHP4, and is available in PHP3 through PHPLIB. I have no idea what qualifies as "cached, efficient DB connections", but I know MySQL is quite fast and effecient. Plus, you don't have to pay $1500 for MS SQL Server.
Sorry, I can't help it. I'm a PHP advocate.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
IANALEOAL (I am not a license expert, or a lawyer (nor do I sell double-glacing)), so what follows may not be correct anyway;)
I suppose it depends on the difference between the normal and binary only versions. It might make sense to issue the 'core' program LGPL, and then charge for binary-only additions (modules), which the LGPL would cover AFAIK.
Of course this wouldn't make sense if the binary-only one has extra 'core' functionality, in that case can't you just re-license anything that is (c) you, and request that all contributors do the same, to allow the entire thing to be released binary-only.
Personally, I'm not convinced that using (L)GPL'd code like cripple-ware is a Good Thing (tm), and think that a 'free for non-commercial use' clause might be better.
--
Enhydra (the OpenSource Java Application server) has similar issues.
So, they've decided to mix and match.
i see. okay. then the FSF has no power to, on it's own, enforce a GPL violation involving code whose copyright belongs to somebody else--is that right?
Interested in learning Chinese or Japanese? check out Chinese/Japanese-English Dictiona
this is a perfectly reasonable post, and usually it would be right, but...
i think i read somewhere in the GPL that in the process of GPL'ing the code, you give the copyright to the FSF. in that case, it seems that you would no longer be able to distribute the same program under a different license (the same way an employee of a software company wouldn't be able to sell his company's product).
anyway, i am not trying to slander the GPL, so if it dosen't say this, somebody just say "it dosen't say that" or whatever.
so, am i right?
sh_
Interested in learning Chinese or Japanese? check out Chinese/Japanese-English Dictiona
You would pay for the non-GPLed version if you want to do something with it that the GPL does not allow -- i.e. make and release binary only versions.
Or you want to write BSD-licensed software.
One thing you might want to look into: Your main code gets GPLed. Modules get GPLed. However, there's a convenience tax :) Anyone who wants the binary to install must pay for it. The source itself is what the GPL covers as I've read it. The funny thing about Linux/BSD is that while the resources required for running software can be low, compile jobs require a considerable amount of power. And even permanently connected machines cannot be in continous update mode. And no one running a business would 1) waste the bandwidth nor would they 2) waste the resources constantly recompiling the only thing available, the source. As for the approved patches only approach, the Linux source is maintained exactly this way. Nothing new here. So I guess what I'm saying is if someone is going to try to skip on the price for the binaries, they'll have to invest in some serious hardware. It isn't exactly the best option for a business tho even if they do make money. Any resources they have have to be allocated to handle customers' needs. (I sort of have the idea that if somebody is going to go the hard way, might as well reward them for investing their time in their own education. Every business has certain things they do inside and other things they depend on others. It goes with the territory of whatever type of business your in. There is no business that can last going the easy way at all times. Companies have to commit to the mundane/time consuming stuff if they want to be taken seriously as well as keep up with the rest of the world.)
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
One thing you might want to look into:
:) Anyone who wants the binary to install must pay for it. The source itself is what the GPL covers as I've read it.
Your main code gets GPLed. Modules get GPLed. However, there's a convenience tax
The funny thing about Linux/BSD is that while the resources required for running software can be low, compile jobs require a considerable amount of power.
And even permanently connected machines cannot be in continous update mode. And no one running a business would 1) waste the bandwidth nor would they 2) waste the resources constantly recompiling the only thing available, the source.
As for the approved patches only approach, the Linux source is maintained exactly this way. Nothing new here.
So I guess what I'm saying is if someone is going to try to skip on the price for the binaries, they'll have to invest in some serious hardware. It isn't exactly the best option for a business tho even if they do make money. Any resources they have have to be allocated to handle customers' needs.
(I sort of have the idea that if somebody is going to go the hard way, might as well reward them for investing their time in their own education. Every business has certain things they do inside and other things they depend on others. It goes with the territory of whatever type of business your in. There is no business that can last going the easy way at all times. Companies have to commit to the mundane/time consuming stuff if they want to be taken seriously as well as keep up with the rest of the world.)
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I think that the proposal you make creates a fundamental conflict of interest; and isn't necessary anyway. At Hewlett-Packard we recently had a similar problem come up when we explained to our management why we wanted to open source e-speak, a piece of infrastructure software for creating free (as in speech) services markets.
The conflict of interest is between asking people to accept that you are using the GPL to show the world that the software you are releasing will create a level playing field while at the same time reserving a priveleged place for yourself. At any point you can argue that your software isn't making enough money because you didn't reserve enough of a special position for yourself, leading you to close the source to more of the product, and alienating the open community that is trying to grow around it.
The first step IMHO is to consider the development costs of the software a writeoff -- and start considering instead how you can make money from the service surrounding the software instead of the software itself.
The key argument that I make to my management is that even if the source is open, that doesn't make it a product. There are some people who are willing to download and work with software without any support and packaging, but those are precious few and their attention is divided among hundreds of different pieces of software that they could possibly be working on.
But by combining that source code with a good test suite (to minimize package bugs, and control backward compatibility), a product release stream (to make it easily installable, include GUI management front-ends, precompiled with a top quality compiler, etc.), a call-in support line, and company backed performance guarantees, you have added something that the source by itself doesn't have.
It is an ongoing area of controversy, but I really think that after releasing a set of code under GPL you should never look back, but push forward to really gather in the community you are trying to create and avoid sending mixed messages like: you can use this for free, but please don't compete with me.
That having been said, if you really want to do this I know that there has been at least one successful counter-example to my opinion; take a look at the ghostscript site and see if you can cope with that model.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
The X11 or BSD licenses, by contrast, says what they mean and that's that. Under these licenses, you know your rights. With the GPL, you can't be sure.
--Brett Glass
--Brett Glass
--Brett Glass
The other message with the same title should stay.
You might also consider adding a copyleft term of some sort to the MIT (BSD without advert clause) license.
Okay, so this is offtopic, but shouldn't it be +1, Funny? Congratulations to the AC who posted this. I had a good laugh.
--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
if the two are identical why in the world would I pay for the commercial version? I think you have answered your own question. You would pay for the non-GPLed version if you want to do something with it that the GPL does not allow -- i.e. make and release binary only versions.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
Why not JSP (Java Server Pages)? You get to break free from Win32 tyranny and have a great object oriented system that will soon support multiple scripting languages.
Only the sole copyright owner of a project is allowed to release a product under multiple licenses. As soon as you start accepting improvements from the free software community, you have to worry about who ownes the changes. If someone gives you an improvement under the GPL, you are only a licensee of the improvement, and thus you cannot redistribute it under your own terms. You need to get OWNERSHIP of the contribution if you want to keep using a dual-licensing scheme, and far less developers are likely to go along with it. I have been in such a situation, and I in fact refused to contribute.
I gather that changes are accepted under the condition that they can be used both with "GNU Ghostscript" and "Aladdin Ghostscript."
This seems to have been a decent trade-off over the years; people have considered it worthwhile to contribute changes without necessarily being paid directly.
I'd tend to think that three factors should come in:
There will be fewer "games" played of the sort there are in Hollywood with I sent you this script, see, and you made a movie based on it, and so I'm going to sue you!
Whether patches are "accepted" or "rejected," they should be tracked, perhaps in a public archive.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
NO NO NO NO
ASP is a well thought out object model that gives access to session maintenance at a range of persistence levels and scopes, as well as cached, efficient DB connections, and feature rich objects that handle HTTP transactions.
It also provides a means to access this object model via Windows Scripting Host and any language that can be plugged into WSH. These include to my knowledge JavaScript, VBSCript, and PerlScript.
So, let's try it slowly:
ASP = language independant object toolkit for writing server side web applications
PHP = combination of a new high level scripting language and a way of embedding it in HTML and having an http server execute it.
People may have written PHP modules that emulate many of the methods available in ASP. That does not make it the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.
I know there is a perl module Apache::ASP that attempts to closely replicated the object model used by ASP.
It is a good object model, and people would do well to use it as a base for similar projects.
Needling comment about Open Source not innovating should be inserted at this point.
-----
I beleve the LGPL (or maybe even stright GPL) works, as long as you don't mind shipping source to all your "binary customers" (or shipping it on request). Of corse it won't prevent other people from doing the same thing, but Red Hat seems to be making enough money even with SuSE, Caldera, Slackware, et. al. in the ring.
However I think you may want to look at the MPL (Mozilla Public Licence) as well. It has a few advantages to people who want a shrinkwrap and free reslease:
You might want to look at The Open Source website, expecally their short approved licences list.
Lastly I think you might want to look at Setting Up Shop: The Business of Open-Source Software which has a discussion of some of hte licences, and some bisness models to make money useing them (I havn't read this yet, just skimed it, so I appolgise if it isn't as good as I hope).
Basically he asks contributing hackers to sign ownership of the code over to him. He makes all code available through the GPL, but sells exceptions to commercial OS vendors.
You can find the business model and licensing here.
This means you can release it under whatever license or licenses you want. You can simply release an LGPL one and a proprietary one that differ only in source availability. This works even if both versions are essentially the same.
The GPL is designed to give rights to the end-users, not to take them from the creator of the work.
æeee!
You might want to look at the license for ACE and TAO. If I understand them correctly, they are BSD-ish in that they allow anyone to use the software without supplying source or having to return modifications.
However, the license also contains a clause where you agree that if you do submit a patch, you implicitly agree to assign copyright to the ACE/TAO maintainers.
ACE and TAO are an interesting open source project -- run by a university research group, with industry support for Dr. Schmidt's group and with private companies offering support, packaging, and custom development.
Good luck, whatever you do.
Doing a dual license GPL(or LGPL or MPL) release doesnt prevent you as author from releasing the software under other licenses too, nor variants of it providing you dont incorporate other peoples patches.
If you use a BSD license your competitors can pick up your code, they can trivially enhance it and refuse to provide your with their changes. If they are feeling bored they will also file a patent claim against you so that you cannot sell your own software any more without a huge lawsuit bill while they can smile and make all the money you should have made.
The GPL has a patents with distribution rule for exactly these kind of reasons.
If your code is a module or library and you want control of the module only then the GPL/LGPL can be excessive, in which case the MPL may well strike a good ground.
If you simply want to throw code to the world and don't care who uses it for what and if they make your commercial life hard then the BSD license (epecially without the advertising clause) is pretty much perfect. Its a 'you have it you do what you like but dont sue me please' license.
Alan
Yep, I remember that - I seem to recall it from the resignation letter some months ago however, and that it was blamed on too much of the original code being kept back by Netscape (so that a lot of work had to be done just to get to the same standard as NS 4 now "enjoys"
To be honest though, I think ANY scheme that allows the author to sell a closed-source release of the package is going to be viewed with a certain distaste; the author might be better off going for the Redhat model - sell boxed sets, complete with support, and then sell support - based on his greater familiarity with the package than recent contributors, he should be able to manage something from that - particularly if he can appeal to the business market that tends to want a Retailer to have a contract with...
< schnipp! >
This is where the difficulty arises; assuming you are replacing an existing (or stub) routine, can you be 100% sure you haven't included one or two lines identical to the original? a library call? a data structure? No piece of code in a package this large can be an island, and you must have read hundreds of lines of code before you feel confident enough to contribute. Even assuming you carefully work around every identical code routine to keep your contribution unique, can you guarantee the next person to patch it won't drag in code from the main body, and contaminate your offering? as I say, it's a difficult area, and the FAQs don't really cover it well enough.
--
-=DaveHowe=-
The BSD License is often criticized for allowing commercial vendors from benefitting from the work of free software authors
:)! BSD is criticized for allowing unassociated parties to just grab source change and keep it.
Not so fast
The GPL as I've read it says take my stuff change it but when you give binaries to someone you must give the source. It also says that the next in line gets the same rights as the previous person to receive the source. Note the word same. That's a BIG word. Now I read that as, unless otherwise noted, I can charge someone if they change source I have downloaded and edited from someone else and they want to take my generation and go binary only w/ their changes. See the thing is that as long as the original author (ie FSF) made no requirement of transfering back copyrights, I can charge people if they want to change the license on their generation. BSD I can't.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
The GPL, on the other hand, is long and complex. It includes a political manifesto which is required to be included with every copy. It prevents commercial reuse of the code, which means that it is fundamentally unfair. Anyone can use the program for what he or she wants except the commercial programmer, who is precluded from incorporating it in a product that he or she does not give away. This provision was intended by the GPL's author, Richard Stallman, to reduce the salaries programmers can make for programming and thus hurt their livelihoods. See The GNU Manifesto , where Stallman explicitly states this intent:
It does not seem to me that a programmer who wants to encourage his colleagues to contribute to a project should adopt a license whose explicit purpose is "ban" them from making a better living than a grad student!
The GPL also deters standardization by preventing commercial and closed-source products from using the same code base as open source products.
In short, the GPL is a poor choice. The time-honored BSD license, or the MIT X license (which is nearly identical), is a much better way to go.
--Brett Glass
OTOH, you *do* need to protect yourself with something like one of these licenses if you don't want to hassle with getting additional permission from each author; otherwise, it opens up a world of legal hurtin'. :) You might consider discussing with each contributor licensing terms and royalties upon submission of their code (or possibly even before they submit their code).
The Netscape Public License FAQ has good explanations of not only the NPL, but several other open-source licenses as well, including BSD, GPL, LGPL, and the Artistic License.
It's my understanding that the major differance between the LGPL and the GPL is simply the fact that you can link to GPL-incompatible libraries using the LGPL. Unless that's all you want to accomplish over the GPL, then there's really no major difference. 'Course, you could always make an Open-Source Copyrighted Undistributable Software Product. ;)
Good luck in your endeavor.
PS.
From the NPL FAQ:--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
Dual licensing isn't a problem at all if you're the sole copyright holder. Ask all contributors to assign you copyright before including their code contributions, and you're free to release it under any licenses you want.
The GNU project retains copyright to all of their projects, so that (I assume) the switch to a newer version of the GPL, if and when this is necessary, is not a problem at all.
--
Ian Peters
As I understand it, The LGPL lets me ( Binary-Only Software Inc) get away with just about anything if I dynamically link, or merely requires me to provide a linkable object file containing my proprietary binary(and there are tools to combine a pile of object files into one massive one, so shipping one .o file would potentially meet the requirement), as well as requiring the distribution of the original LGPL code.
Are these minor hassles to Binary-Only Software Inc. really worth paying you money? I doubt it.
With the Cygwin distribution, Cygnus uses a dual GPL/commercial licence to ensure that binary-only developers need to pay for a licence. This would probably make more sense. I realise that such a licensing scheme would make life difficult for BSD'ers, but from a revenue-generating standpoint it's the only variation of this business model that really makes sense.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Well, I'm not going to charge for PSP... it seems like too much ahssle and that I would cause more harm than not by trying to make money directly from it. BTW, you can downloaded Beta v.9 at Torry's delphi pages and also the Pascal Super Page! It doesn't have all the nice explainations... its a rogh cut and all, but I'm still working on it....
So would all contributors get an equal slice of the pie? So that the contributor who puts forth a 5-minute 2 line fix gets the same as the one who spends 3 weeks debugging a 1200 line mega-function?
Or do you plan to somehow determine the "worth" of each contributor's code? What method would possibly be fair? Lines of code? Profiling?
I think you might be asking for disputes.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
- Modifications to the existing NPL code MUST themselves fall under the NPL - and be available to Netscape for their own private use.
- Entirely new code may be licenced under NPL or under the Moz licence (code under the Moz licence is not available to Netscape for commercial purposes)
However, as far as I know, the distiction of "what is entirely new code" is sufficiently hard to draw that most code ends up under the NPL. I am ready to be corrected on this, of course--
-=DaveHowe=-
Remember, the copyright holder can release code under multiple incompatible licenses. So, the key thing is for you to insist that all patches be signed over to you (or, more appropriately, the company you found to handle the commercial side of things); if they won't sign the patch over, refuse to accept it. So, then the copyright holder is Widgets, Inc., and is free to release under both the GPL (or LGPL, or BSD, or Artistic, or whatever) and under a commercial license.
You can then track who gives you patches, make them shareholders in Widgets, Inc., and give them a portion of the proceeds. The key thing is to get all the code under one copyright holder, so you can then do whatever the hell you want.
For some real-life examples of this, check out CUPS and LPRng. Both release both GPLed and commercial versions, and both operate like I've suggested (though I don't believe either one contributes net profits back to patch contributors).