On Apr 6, 2009, at 3:03 PM, Jason Slagle wrote:
>
> On Mon, 6 Apr 2009, Luke Kanies wrote:
>
>> 1) Leave them like they are. No copyright assignment, no real
>> copyright maintenance, GPL2 or later. This means that every
>> contributor ever must give permission for things like license
>> changes,
>> we can't easily protect against license infringement
>> (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html
>> ), no one can ever dual license, and essentially no commercial
>> software can ever be produced that integrates with Puppet.
>>
>> 2) Stick to a viral/reciprocal license (probably AGPLv3) but require
>> Sun-style copyright contribution (which provides the project a non-
>> exclusive license to the copyright). This provides a single
>> organization with a license for all copyright, and allows that
>> license
>> holder (Reductive Labs) to protect against license infringement,
>> provide patent indemnity (which I've already been asked about by
>> others but cannot currently offer), relicense Puppet (and produce
>> commercial software that integrates with that relicensed product),
>> and probably more.
>>
>> 3) Switch to a non-reciprocal license (e.g., Apache) and don't
>> require
>> copyright coassignment. This allows anyone to do anything with the
>> code, so there's no real concern about license infringement and
>> anyone
>> can make commercial add-ons. This is both good and bad, though, in
>> that even those with no commitment to Puppet's community could build
>> commercial products on it, which I think is not so great.
>
> I think a lot of it depends on your goals.
>
> Clearly long term #1 does not work. It provides a big mess for you
> and
> puts in you a boat of only ever really being able to sell support.
>
> I feel option number 2 will further limit the number of people
> willing to
> contribute code. Especially if you plan to sell it commercially
> later.
> For instance, at my employer here I could contribute some code (and
> as I
> bone up on Ruby I may even attempt to, even if it's only some types
> and
> stuff at first). However, it gets a lot stickier contributing back
> if the
> I'm contributing code that you may be selling. Conflict and all.
Can you elaborate on what you think the problems will be?
I don't see how a conflict could develop.
>
> I must admit I'm a fan of the Apache license or a BSD license of some
> sort. It gives you the right to sell it while also remaining open.
> It
> also means that I don't have to have a copyright laywer on staff to
> modify
> your code and use it locally :)
Well, you wouldn't need a copyright lawyer if you bought a license
from us. I think that's part of the reason for supporting dual
licensing - if this is something that concerns your company, then you
can solve it by paying a bit. If you stay all open source, no problems.
I'm not saying this is what I would do, but that it is the natural
consequence of choosing a GPL-like license.
--
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
--Douglas Adams
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Luke Kanies | http://reductivelabs.com | http://madstop.com
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