I'm looking at building a commercial network test toolkit. Reading the CPL and the article at IBM (below) it seems that this is possible, even promoted. As long as I use staff "as is" as part of the overall solution I craft, I can sell the overall solution (citing clearly the the license for the STAF portion). If you would clarify, or point me to a resource where I could get clarification, I would appreciate it.
“Can I take a Program licensed under the CPL, compile it without modification, and commercially license the result?
Yes. You may compile a Program licensed under the CPL without modification and commercially license the result in accordance with the terms of the CPL.”
“When I incorporate a portion of a Program licensed under the CPL into my own proprietary product distributed in object code form, can I use a single license for the full product, in other words, covering the portion of the Program plus my own code?
Yes. The object code for the product may be distributed under a single license as long as it references the CPL portion and complies, for that portion, with the terms of the CPL.”
And from opensource.org (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cpl1.0.php)
b) Subject to the terms of this Agreement, each Contributor hereby grants Recipient a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under Licensed Patents to make, use, sell, offer to sell, import and otherwise transfer the Contribution of such Contributor, if any, in source code and object code form.
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My understanding is the same as yours. However, I am not a lawyer. Given that you are planning to produce a commercial product, I would strongly suggest you contact a lawyer, just to be on the safe side. There may be legal resources available on the internet as well, but I'm not familiar with any off the top of my head. You might also consider Googling for other commercial products that include CPL software. That might give you more insight into what others have done in this regard.
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Thanks for your prompt reply. We will speak with a lawyer to be as safe as possible. I followed your suggestion to search for commercial products based on, or incorporating CPL licensed code and found the following regarding Eclipse, the popular IDE which is CPL licensed.
Thanks again,
Chris
Eclipse commercial products
Each member of the Eclipse Foundation has committed to delivering one or more products based on Eclipse. For example, IBM has moved almost all of its IDE products to the Eclipse Platform. At EclipseCon 2004, many companies showed exciting demos of upcoming products based on Eclipse, including several products based on the new Eclipse RCP.
In April 2004, the following companies had commercial Eclipse-based offerings: Advanced Systems Concepts, Borland Software, CanyonBlue, Catalyst Systems, Codefarm, Embarcadero Technologies, Ensemble Systems, Ericsson, ETRI (Electronics & Telecommunications Research Institute), Flashline, Fujitsu Software, Genuitec, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM, INNOOPRACT Informationssysteme, Instantiations, Intel, Logic Library, M7, MERANT, Metanology, Micro Focus, MKS, MontaVista Software, Oracle, Parasoft, QA Systems, QNX Software Systems, Red Hat, SAP, SAS, Scapa Technologies, Serena Software, SilverMark, SlickEdit, SuSE, Sybase, Teamstudio, Telelogic, Tensilica, TimeSys, and Wasabi Systems.
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Hi,
I'm looking at building a commercial network test toolkit. Reading the CPL and the article at IBM (below) it seems that this is possible, even promoted. As long as I use staff "as is" as part of the overall solution I craft, I can sell the overall solution (citing clearly the the license for the STAF portion). If you would clarify, or point me to a resource where I could get clarification, I would appreciate it.
Thanks,
Chris
(http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-cplfaq.html)
“Can I take a Program licensed under the CPL, compile it without modification, and commercially license the result?
Yes. You may compile a Program licensed under the CPL without modification and commercially license the result in accordance with the terms of the CPL.”
“When I incorporate a portion of a Program licensed under the CPL into my own proprietary product distributed in object code form, can I use a single license for the full product, in other words, covering the portion of the Program plus my own code?
Yes. The object code for the product may be distributed under a single license as long as it references the CPL portion and complies, for that portion, with the terms of the CPL.”
And from opensource.org (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cpl1.0.php)
b) Subject to the terms of this Agreement, each Contributor hereby grants Recipient a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under Licensed Patents to make, use, sell, offer to sell, import and otherwise transfer the Contribution of such Contributor, if any, in source code and object code form.
My understanding is the same as yours. However, I am not a lawyer. Given that you are planning to produce a commercial product, I would strongly suggest you contact a lawyer, just to be on the safe side. There may be legal resources available on the internet as well, but I'm not familiar with any off the top of my head. You might also consider Googling for other commercial products that include CPL software. That might give you more insight into what others have done in this regard.
Thanks for your prompt reply. We will speak with a lawyer to be as safe as possible. I followed your suggestion to search for commercial products based on, or incorporating CPL licensed code and found the following regarding Eclipse, the popular IDE which is CPL licensed.
Thanks again,
Chris
Eclipse commercial products
Each member of the Eclipse Foundation has committed to delivering one or more products based on Eclipse. For example, IBM has moved almost all of its IDE products to the Eclipse Platform. At EclipseCon 2004, many companies showed exciting demos of upcoming products based on Eclipse, including several products based on the new Eclipse RCP.
In April 2004, the following companies had commercial Eclipse-based offerings: Advanced Systems Concepts, Borland Software, CanyonBlue, Catalyst Systems, Codefarm, Embarcadero Technologies, Ensemble Systems, Ericsson, ETRI (Electronics & Telecommunications Research Institute), Flashline, Fujitsu Software, Genuitec, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM, INNOOPRACT Informationssysteme, Instantiations, Intel, Logic Library, M7, MERANT, Metanology, Micro Focus, MKS, MontaVista Software, Oracle, Parasoft, QA Systems, QNX Software Systems, Red Hat, SAP, SAS, Scapa Technologies, Serena Software, SilverMark, SlickEdit, SuSE, Sybase, Teamstudio, Telelogic, Tensilica, TimeSys, and Wasabi Systems.