On 2018-09-05 01:07, Mark Talluto via use-livecode wrote:
I had to work through a contract recently. This particular section was
interesting. Thought I would share it here. I changed the organization
name to [company] to protect this well respected entity.
I can understand their view on the use of open source software. What
are your thoughts?
- - -
Public Software. Contractor will inform [company] in advance of
incorporating any open source software into deliverables or services
provided to [company] under this Agreement, provide [company] with an
analysis of alternative options that do not include open source
software, and will proceed with the use of open source software only
to the extent of [company]’s written consent. To the extent Contractor
incorporates permitted open source software into products or services
provided to [company] under this Agreement such open source software
(and/or Contractor’s inclusion thereof) will not require any software
developed or delivered under the Agreement to be disclosed or
distributed in source code form or made freely available to others.
- - -
Sounds like a perfectly reasonable clause which is more protection for
you than the contractor.
Basically it ensures that the Contractor will do necessary due diligence
on the software licenses attached to any source-code they incorporate
into the project being worked on to ensure that:
(a) you as the contractee are happy with using said software under its
published terms and are willing to abide by them (for MIT / BSD, that
just means an 'open source licenses' file, which you need to one of
anyway, as that is part of the commercial license terms of LiveCode).
(b) will not let you get into a situation where source-code has been
incorporated which means that you entire project must be released under
some open source license.
Put another way the contractor is saying that:
1) They will notify you of any parts which could be done using open
source software, and with other options so you have choice
2) They will not consider viral open source licenses (e.g. GPL) as
being suitable for inclusion
LiveCode's licensing is pretty straightforward:
If you have a commercial license you have the right to use a downloaded
distribution in any way which does not contravene the commercial license
terms.
If you do not have a commercial license then you must be using the
Community version, which is licensed under the GPL - which is viral -
meaning that any software you create with it must also be distributed
under GPL terms.
The two variants are, however, completely incompatible in terms of
licensing - you can't take parts of (GPL licensed!) community and use
them with commercial as that would mean your combined work would end up
being GPL, but the commercial part is not, so you cannot distribute
(which is a side-effect of the clauses in the GPL).
Specific example - you cannot take parts of (GPL Licensed, LiveCode Ltd.
Copyrighted) source code, recompile and use with commercial - even if
you have a commercial license. That requires a specific commercial
source-code license for those particular parts (something which we will
always consider on a case-by-case basis - although generally not for
zero cost).
Warmest Regards,
Mark.
--
Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps
_______________________________________________
use-livecode mailing list
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com
Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription
preferences:
http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
