On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 2:52 PM, mn <mneri2...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hello, > new on here and not a tech guy, wanted to know if a company or > programmer who uses Django can claim they own the code?
Firstly, IANAL, etc. There are at least three blocks of code under discussion here. Firstly, there is the code that comprises Django itself. Django's code is licensed under the BSD license [1]. The copyright is held by the Django Software Foundation. "Owned" is a bit of a loose phrase here, but for most practical purposes, Django's code is "owned" by the Django Foundation. [1] http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/trunk/LICENSE Secondly, there are any other libraries used by your website. This will probably include the Python libraries and any number of other utility libraries that your website developer has used. You will need to investigate the licenses for each of those libraries, but they will usually offer terms that are similar to Django's license (although the details can be very significant). Consult the libraries in question for more details on their licensing terms. Lastly, there is the code that comprises your website - the code that utilizes the Django, Python, and other libraries to implement whatever functionality your website has. The license for this code is entirely between you and your developer. > Also if I have my developer build my website using Django, do I own it > or simply license the code? As far as the Django code is concerned, you have been granted a license, subject to the terms and conditions of the BSD license. If you build your website using Django, you don't suddenly "own" Django's code, but you do have a fairly liberal license to use, modify and redistribute Django's code. See the license [1] for details. As far as your website is concerned - that's entirely up to your contract with your developer. It is possible to negotiate contracts where you own the code, or they own the code, or various splits and variations in between. This is something to take up with your developer and your lawyer. Yours, Russ Magee %-) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
