oopic-compiler-devel

[Oopic-compiler-devel] open source 'license' terms

[D. D. M. <Da...@Mc...>]

All,

As a matter of procedure, has there been a 'license' or 'copyright' terms
decided upon?

A quick survey of the discussion so far didn't sow any, and I do not recall
any such discussion.

Does SourceForge 'impose' any license terms?  (I didn't check.)

If this is an open issue, my instinct would tell me to promote this to a top
priority.

Best Regards,
Daniel

Re: [Oopic-compiler-devel] open source 'license' terms

[Neil D. <nd...@us...>]

D. Daniel McGlothin wrote:
> As a matter of procedure, has there been a 'license' or 'copyright' terms
> decided upon?

No.

> Does SourceForge 'impose' any license terms?  (I didn't check.)

All it imposes is that projects should be open-source.  When I set up the
Sourceforge project I was given a long list of different open source
licenses to choose from (just for informational purposes for people looking
at the project site) and I just put GPL because it's pretty much the most
common open source license and one I've used before on various projects.  I
put this pending a proper discussion about it later, and it's easy to
change if.

> If this is an open issue, my instinct would tell me to promote this to a top
> priority.

Yes, we should pin down the license terms before we upload any of our code
to Sourceforge (where it becomes open source).

Does anyone have any preferences to the licensing terms?  I would tend to
prefer whatever licencing terms help to promote the project and encourage
people to contribute.  As the GPL seems to be the most popular open-source
licence, I'm guessing that would be a good contender.

There are some comparisons of the various more common open-source licencing
terms here:

  <http://www.invis.co.uk/oslct/>

  <http://www.croftsoft.com/library/tutorials/opensource/>

Neil
-- 
Neil Durant
<nd...@us...>

Re: [Oopic-compiler-devel] open source 'license' terms

[Brian <bri...@po...>]

On Sat, Jun 05, 2004 at 08:09:21AM -0400, D. Daniel McGlothin wrote:
> All,
> 
> As a matter of procedure, has there been a 'license' or 'copyright' terms
> decided upon?
> 
> A quick survey of the discussion so far didn't sow any, and I do not recall
> any such discussion.
> 
> Does SourceForge 'impose' any license terms?  (I didn't check.)

Daniel--

I believe SourceForge requires an open-source license that is
compatible with the open source definition (and licenses) listed at
OSI (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.php).

For this project, I'm not partial.  However, we might want to check
with Scott first to see if there is any information we are receiving
from him (code, etc.) that we do *not* have the right to release under
an open-source license (i.e., there are no patent issues, IP rights
etc.).

Also, note that the BSD license allows 3rd parties to modify the code
base without having to release modified source code (i.e., release
under a closed-source license, much like Microsoft has done with major
portions of BSD-licensed network/TCP/IP stack code).   Some folks
favor this appropach in that the BSD license doesn't "taint" future
forks by requiring release under the same open licensing scheme.  Of
course, the GPL purists believe this simply encourages people to steal
the hard work of others without requiring them to "give back" to the
open source community.

A license worth looking at is the Mozilla Public License...this one
has a provision that in the event of patent-based challenges, the
offending code can be removed from under the provisions of the MPL.
With the GPL, it's pretty much an all-or-nothing deal:  If any part of
your code is found to be infringing, the entire code base is at risk
(just check out http://www.groklaw.com to see this attack on the GPL
in action!).

  --Brian

Re: [Oopic-compiler-devel] open source 'license' terms

[Neil D. <nd...@us...>]

Brian wrote:
> For this project, I'm not partial.  However, we might want to check
> with Scott first to see if there is any information we are receiving
> from him (code, etc.) that we do *not* have the right to release under
> an open-source license (i.e., there are no patent issues, IP rights
> etc.).

Definitely agreeed!!  From Scott's attitude so far he has seemed pretty
open and flexible.  However it would be only courteous to check with him,
and having a comment from him agreeing to our licence terms ought to shield
us from hassles in the future.

> Also, note that the BSD license allows 3rd parties to modify the code
> base without having to release modified source code (i.e., release
> under a closed-source license, much like Microsoft has done with major
> portions of BSD-licensed network/TCP/IP stack code).   Some folks
> favor this appropach in that the BSD license doesn't "taint" future
> forks by requiring release under the same open licensing scheme.  Of
> course, the GPL purists believe this simply encourages people to steal
> the hard work of others without requiring them to "give back" to the
> open source community.

I tend to be cautious about BSD-style licenses.  I think I would feel
aggrieved if I contributed a load of code, free, to the open-source world,
and then some company subsequently took my work and released it without the
code, and sold it.  If my understanding of the BSD licence is correct, it
permits that - am I right?

> A license worth looking at is the Mozilla Public License...this one
> has a provision that in the event of patent-based challenges, the
> offending code can be removed from under the provisions of the MPL.
> With the GPL, it's pretty much an all-or-nothing deal:  If any part of
> your code is found to be infringing, the entire code base is at risk
> (just check out http://www.groklaw.com to see this attack on the GPL
> in action!).

That does sound worth considering.  I can imagine parts of the code
generation phase being tied up with IP or patents etc (but probably not),
whereas the parser side would be entirely unconnected. Preserving the
ability to compartmentalise what we do could be valuable.

Neil
-- 
Neil Durant
<nd...@us...>