Open Source License Question

[Michael Foord]

I'd like to formalise slightly the license I release my projects
under. At the moment it's 'free to use, modify, distribute and
relicense'. This is basically fine as I don't want t oprevent people
using my work in commercial settings - but I would like to retain the
right to be identified as the author. I'd also like to prevent people
selling derivative works where my stuff forms the substantial part of
the poduct.

I'd prefer to use an OSI approved license - but it's not essential.
I've been browsing through them and I can't quite see any that
*exactly* fits the bill. Before I draft my own I wondered if anyone
had a reccomendation.

I don't need to require people to make a list of amendments if they
change things. This puts the Python license out. I also don't mind
people relicensing derivative works - a simple thanks in the
documentation and a link to the homepage is my basic requirement.


Regards,

Fuzzy
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/atlantibots/pythonutils.html

 

[Joachim Bowman]

Hi,

I'd also like to prevent people
selling derivative works where my stuff forms the substantial part of
the poduct.

I'd prefer to use an OSI approved license - but it's not essential.

These two don't go together. Read "6. No Discrimination Against Fields
of Endeavor" in "The Open Source Definition"[0].

J

[0] http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

 

[Istvan Albert]

These two don't go together. Read "6. No Discrimination Against Fields
of Endeavor" in "The Open Source Definition"[0].

[0] http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

Yay, another thread on software licensing.

By the way Fuzzy, just release your software with your own
licensing scheme. If you don't like any of the available OSI
licenses then don't use them, as simple as that.

On one hand "OSI approved" means very little on the other
people do not completely understand these licenses anyway,
the long, recurrent GPL related threads demonstrate that.

Istvan.

 

[Neil Hodgson]

Istvan Albert:

By the way Fuzzy, just release your software with your own
licensing scheme. If you don't like any of the available OSI
licenses then don't use them, as simple as that.

Then you receive boring mails about what exactly your license means and
"why don't you change the license to something I know like the GPL"? License
questions must be the most boring part of running an OS project and I would
love to be able to just renounce copyright on my work but it no longer
appears possible.

Neil

 

[Peter Hansen]

I'd also like to prevent people
selling derivative works where my stuff forms the substantial part of
the product.

If you can get yourself over this philosophical hump, you're
all set.

Can you see it differently, sort of like "if someone else is
selling something based largely on my work, they've just
identified a nice juicy market which I could get into very
easily"? And as the original author, you might even be
able to steal their customers from them without much effort.

-Peter

 

[Peter Hansen]

I would
love to be able to just renounce copyright on my work but it no longer
appears possible.

I haven't been trying to keep up to date on this issue, but these
guys seem to feel there is something along those lines that can be done:
http://creativecommons.org/ (Specifically,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/ )

By how far does that miss your mark?

-Peter

 

[Dan Perl]

Michael, I have one comment in-line (see below), but other than that I can
only say that I chose GPL for my own project. It may discourage use of my
code for commercial purposes but it might even be pretentious to expect that
something like that would ever happen. On the other hand, I was more
interested in the advantages of open-source and I wanted to enforce that as
much as possible. I did some research of my own at the time (recently,
actually) but I didn't go much into details and I didn't study other
licenses in detail either, but I chose GPL in large part because it is the
most widely used.

I tried to find some of the web pages that I read when I was doing my
research but I couldn't. However, I stumbled upon an article that I didn't
see before and that is very much in line with my thoughts. Here's a link:
http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html.

Hope this helps,

Dan

I'd like to formalise slightly the license I release my projects
under. At the moment it's 'free to use, modify, distribute and
relicense'. This is basically fine as I don't want t oprevent people
using my work in commercial settings - but I would like to retain the
right to be identified as the author. I'd also like to prevent people
selling derivative works where my stuff forms the substantial part of
the poduct.

Michael, I think it's going to be hard to get what you want. I don't see
how you can give a lot of freedom ("I don't want to prevent people using my
work in commercial settings") and, at the same time, achieve something like
"to prevent people selling derivative works where my stuff forms the
substantial part of the poduct". I'm no lawyer, but I don't think you can
define in a license what is a "substantial part of the product".

 

[Istvan Albert]

Peter Hansen wrote:

I haven't been trying to keep up to date on this issue, but these
guys seem to feel there is something along those lines that can be done:
http://creativecommons.org/ (Specifically,

IMO the problem with the licenses (the CC is no help in that)
is that the terms are to vague. It is very easy to define
what it means to give away all rights, but for anything more
complicated it bogs down quickly:

What is a derivative work? When is attribution properly done?
What is a commercial use? What is fair use?

Istvan.

 

[Jeremy Bowers]

I would
love to be able to just renounce copyright on my work but it no longer
appears possible.

To the best of my knowledge, nothing prevents you from doing that. Usually
all you need is a "This work is placed in the public domain by the
author", and it would probably be a good idea to add a date and a name,
though later modifiers can freely remove it.

As long as you understand that if someone uses your software to power
their Alan Parsons Project "Laser" and holds the Earth hostage for ONE
MEEEEEEELION DOLLARS that you have no recourse whatsoever, that's fine.
(Obviously an extreme, but it is worth pointing out the relinquishing all
rights really means *all* rights; I've seen too many people who really
didn't get that. I don't mean to imply anything about you personally,
Neil, this is just one of my reflexive comments I make on this topic.)

 

[Guest]

To the best of my knowledge, nothing prevents you from doing that.

In Germany, copyright law prevents you from doing that. There is no
notion of public domain (Gemeinfreiheit); this absence follows from
from §29 UrhG. You simply continue to remain the Urheber (copyright
holder) of some work, no matter what you declare.

Regards,
Martin

 

[Michael Foord]

Michael, I have one comment in-line (see below), but other than that I can
only say that I chose GPL for my own project. It may discourage use of my
code for commercial purposes but it might even be pretentious to expect that
something like that would ever happen.

A lot of people use python as part of their job and are active
participants in teh python community. A lot of what I write are
library modules to do a particular job. Using the GPL means someone is
unable to use your work in a business setting. i don't expect other
people to sell products containing my work - but neither do I want to
prevent them from being able to use it.

On the other hand, I was more
interested in the advantages of open-source and I wanted to enforce that as
much as possible. I did some research of my own at the time (recently,
actually) but I didn't go much into details and I didn't study other
licenses in detail either, but I chose GPL in large part because it is the
most widely used.

I tried to find some of the web pages that I read when I was doing my
research but I couldn't. However, I stumbled upon an article that I didn't
see before and that is very much in line with my thoughts. Here's a link:
http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html.

Sure - if I allow my work to be relicensed then it will be GPL
compatible. I don't like the GPL itself.

Hope this helps,

Dan



Michael, I think it's going to be hard to get what you want. I don't see
how you can give a lot of freedom ("I don't want to prevent people using my
work in commercial settings") and, at the same time, achieve something like
"to prevent people selling derivative works where my stuff forms the
substantial part of the poduct". I'm no lawyer, but I don't think you can
define in a license what is a "substantial part of the product".

I've done some legal training - English law can be reasonably sensible
when it comes to definitions of words. You could even pin it down to
something as specific as 'more than 30% of the lines of source code'.
In programming terms it's a meaningless measure - but you have to
start somewhere. I don't think I can afford to sue anyone
anyway...........

Regards,


Fuzzy

 

[Dan Perl]

Following a link in the article that I was pointing to, I found yet another
interesting article. See especially the "Choosing a License" section in
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/perens.html. I didn't know
about the X license before, but it sounds intriguing. Michael, you may be
interested in that or in LGPL.

Dan

 

[Michael Foord]

Hi,

I'd also like to prevent people
selling derivative works where my stuff forms the substantial part of
the poduct.

I'd prefer to use an OSI approved license - but it's not essential.

These two don't go together. Read "6. No Discrimination Against Fields
of Endeavor" in "The Open Source Definition"[0].

I don't see a conflict at all on that point.....

regards,

Fuzzy

J

[0] http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

 

[Michael Foord]

I haven't been trying to keep up to date on this issue, but these
guys seem to feel there is something along those lines that can be done:
http://creativecommons.org/ (Specifically,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/ )

By how far does that miss your mark?

Not bad. Their most permissive 'by attribution', which is just a step
beond public domain is better for me I think.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Thanks.

Fuzzy

 

[Robert Kern]

To the best of my knowledge, nothing prevents you from doing that. Usually
all you need is a "This work is placed in the public domain by the
author", and it would probably be a good idea to add a date and a name,
though later modifiers can freely remove it.

IANAL. TINLA.

Actually, in the US, nothing *allows* you to release something into the
public domain. For new works, it's a category that only exists for works
whose copyright has expired by time or works created by the US government.

Even when a work is legitimately public domain in the US, it is somewhat
murky whether such status exists in other Berne Convention countries, too.

In short, the concept of dedicating something to the public domain is so
murky that I've abandoned it. Slapping an MIT license on my work is so
much easier and clearer.

As long as you understand that if someone uses your software to power
their Alan Parsons Project "Laser" and holds the Earth hostage for ONE
MEEEEEEELION DOLLARS that you have no recourse whatsoever, that's fine.
(Obviously an extreme, but it is worth pointing out the relinquishing all
rights really means *all* rights;

That's not *quite* true. Even for works that have unambiguously fallen
into the public domain, the author retains certain rights called "moral
rights." For example, it is impermissible to change a public domain work
and still claim that the author wrote the whole work including the
changes.

--
Robert Kern
(e-mail address removed)

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
-- Richard Harter

 

[Peter Hansen]

Michael, I have one comment in-line (see below), but other than that I can
only say that I chose GPL for my own project. It may discourage use of my
code for commercial purposes but it might even be pretentious to expect that
something like that would ever happen. On the other hand, I was more
interested in the advantages of open-source and I wanted to enforce that as
much as possible. I did some research of my own at the time (recently,
actually) but I didn't go much into details and I didn't study other
licenses in detail either, but I chose GPL in large part because it is the
most widely used.

This seems like an appropriate post to which to attach a reference
to a nice article contrasting the GPL and the Mozilla Public License
(MPL): http://croftsoft.com/library/tutorials/gplmpl/

Summary of that essay, in the words of its author:
"I state in this essay that MPL is more free and open than GPL."

-Peter

 

[Dan Perl]

A lot of people use python as part of their job and are active
participants in teh python community. A lot of what I write are
library modules to do a particular job. Using the GPL means someone is
unable to use your work in a business setting. i don't expect other
people to sell products containing my work - but neither do I want to
prevent them from being able to use it.

Fair enough. LGPL, X, or BSD should allow you to do that.

Sure - if I allow my work to be relicensed then it will be GPL
compatible. I don't like the GPL itself.


I've done some legal training - English law can be reasonably sensible
when it comes to definitions of words. You could even pin it down to
something as specific as 'more than 30% of the lines of source code'.
In programming terms it's a meaningless measure - but you have to
start somewhere. I don't think I can afford to sue anyone
anyway...........

I saw basically two messages in the articles that I have quoted. One was
for GPL-compatibility, but the other one was to not write your own license.
I think other people also have been giving a warning about that in this
thread. I'll give you credit for having some legal training and I will
assume that you can do a good job at defining a license. However, think of
it this way. No matter how good a job you can do at writing it, most people
will not be good enough at interpreting it. You are trying to allow some
commercial use of your code, but you may end up driving people away from
using it, both for commercial and OS purposes. Many people will just avoid
it if it is not a license that they understand and that they are not
familiar with.

My 2 cents.

Dan

 

[Neil Hodgson]

Peter Hansen:

I haven't been trying to keep up to date on this issue, but these
guys seem to feel there is something along those lines that can be done:
http://creativecommons.org/ (Specifically,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/ )

By how far does that miss your mark?

It appears to be the same as just declaring that your work is in the
public domain. Since you still own and can not relinquish copyright, there
is nothing to stop you changing your mind and requiring payment from those
who believed your declaration.

Neil

 

[Donnal Walter]

This seems like an appropriate post to which to attach a reference
to a nice article contrasting the GPL and the Mozilla Public License
(MPL): http://croftsoft.com/library/tutorials/gplmpl/

Summary of that essay, in the words of its author:
"I state in this essay that MPL is more free and open than GPL."

Thanks for this reference and the one to Creative Commons. Is there a
good mailing list or on-line forum appropriate for discussing licensing
issues? I wouldn't mind discussing my questions here as I have the
highest regard for the participants in c.l.p, but my questions are
mostly off topic for this list. I'm still struggling with the copyleft
vs non-copyleft issue, for example, and there may be a more appropriate
place to discuss this.

Donnal Walter
Arkansas Children's Hospital

 

[Robert Kern]

Thanks for this reference and the one to Creative Commons. Is there a
good mailing list or on-line forum appropriate for discussing licensing
issues? I wouldn't mind discussing my questions here as I have the
highest regard for the participants in c.l.p, but my questions are
mostly off topic for this list. I'm still struggling with the copyleft
vs non-copyleft issue, for example, and there may be a more appropriate
place to discuss this.

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/#email

I do recommend reading some of the archives first. Some of your
questions have been tread over many times on that list.

--
Robert Kern
(e-mail address removed)

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
-- Richard Harter