[mantisbt-dev] FW: Licensing question "not free for commercial use"

[Paul R. <gra...@bl...>]

Regarding the SOAP API licensing status, I can see this was asked when the code was originally added (see below), but that no answer was sent to the list to clarify.

Paul


-----Original Message-----
From: man...@li... [mailto:man...@li...] On Behalf Of Udo Rader
Sent: 03 March 2008 12:28
To: developer discussions
Subject: Re: [mantisbt-dev] Licensing question "not free for commercial use"


On Mon, 2008-03-03 at 12:59 +0100, Patrick Schoenfeld wrote:
> Hi Udo,
> 
> I cannot speak as a lawyer or a copyright holder, but as a prospective 
> Debian developer I spent some time to figure out licensing issues.
> So here is my humble opinion:
> 
> On Mon, Mar 03, 2008 at 12:43:55PM +0100, Udo Rader wrote:
> > Now, Mantis itself is governed by the GPL whereas MantisConnect is 
> > governed by a commercial license [2].
> 
> Well, thats true for the MantisConnect on the website, but not for the 
> MantisConnect which is part of the source distribution.
> 
> > Does api/soap/mantisconnect.php need to be removed from Mantis in 
> > order to remain fully GPL compliant?
> 
> As you see if you open this file, the header states:
> 
> # This program is distributed under dual licensing.  These # include 
> GPL and a commercial licenses.  Victor Boctor reserves # the right to 
> change the license of future releases.
> 
> Dual licensing means that its possible to choose between one license 
> or the other. Obviously this choice must be predictable by the 
> licensee, so it cannot be the choice of the distributor, meaning that 
> *you* are in choice weither you want to use it under the terms of the 
> GPL or under the commercial usage. I don't really understand whats the 
> intension behind these dual licensing (because I don't see whats the 
> pro for the commercial licensing), but thats irrelevant. For a 
> distribution this dual licensing is fine. We can distribute it under 
> the terms of the GPL and so can our users use it.

Ok, thanks for this POV, that seems to be quite reasonable given the circumstances. 

Hopefully Victor shares this POV :-)

--
Udo Rader

bestsolution.at EDV Systemhaus GmbH
http://www.bestsolution.at


>