On Apr 6, 2009, at 4:09 PM, Robin Lee Powell wrote: > > On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 02:15:44PM -0500, Luke Kanies wrote: >> I think there are essentially two decisions to make, with some >> details around them: >> >> 1) Should we use a completely open Apache-style license, or a >> reciprocal/viral GPL-style license? > > I'm not a big fan of viral-style in most cases; it seems like giving > with one hand and slapping with the other. (Depends on the > software, though; I don't mind it for compilers, for example. I > also don't really want to get into it.) > > Having said that, I think either choice is extremely generous; I'd > still contribute (not that I've contributed code yet) if it was > "free to distribute but not modify", OSLT. This is your baby, I > can't imagine being bothered by what you choose to do with it as > long as it's still free for me with my 3 machines over here.
It's true that this was my baby initially, and I've still got the vast majority of the commits (and probably an even larger share of the lines), but it's becoming less true all the time, and I hope it becomes even less true over time. At the same time, I hope to have more room to do the long-term cool stuff I actually built Puppet to do, and that's where I will hopefully be able to exert my influence beyond basic ability to churn out code. > >> 2) Should we require copyright assignment of any kind? > > My limited understanding of the legal ramifications says that yes, > you probably should. Yeah, the legal side seems to say yes, we'll see if the community side will allow it. > > [snip] >> Fundamentally, I see three basic choices: >> >> 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 agree that #2 seems best. I'm really shocked by the Chef project; > it seems really offensive to me, and I'd like to see you guys go in > a direction that stops someone from just rebundling Puppet and > calling it theirs. To be clear here, Chef isn't Puppet rebundled or anything; it takes a lot of Puppet's obvious advancements, but it doesn't share any code (and can't, because we use the GPL2). Fortunately it doesn't seem to include any of Puppet's less obvious advancements, so... :) -- A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time. --Alfred E. Wiggam --------------------------------------------------------------------- Luke Kanies | http://reductivelabs.com | http://madstop.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Puppet Users" group. To post to this group, send email to puppet-users@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to puppet-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
