open-source licensing

Yet another overblown open source debate

Matt Aslett of The 451 Group and I met in London this morning, and discussed a range of issues. One thing that came up, which Aslett discusses on his blog, was the furor over CPAL, AGPL, and other open-source licensing designed for the Internet. I heavily contributed to that furor but, looking back, it would seem that the concerns were almost completely overblown.

Mea culpa.

A year and a half later, very few open-source projects use the CPAL license, which introduced a specific form of graphical attribution for open-source projects. There was sound around it, and there was fury, but … Read more

Google's weird ways with open-source licenses

CNET's Stephen Shankland has already picked up on Google's decision to allow two popular open-source licenses back onto its Google Code open-source repository. Up until now, the Mozilla Public License (MPL) and Eclipse Public License (EPL) were both banned from the site.

The reasoning Shankland reports for Google belatedly approving the licenses, however, is a bit bizarre. In the case of the EPL, Google's Chris DiBona argues:

Eclipse is an important, lively, and healthy project with an enormous plug-in and developer community that uses an otherwise duplicative license. They aren't interested in using the BSD or … Read more

Google bans the Mozilla Public License

First it was the Affero General Public License that Google banned from its Google Code site, an open-source code hosting site. Google contended that it didn't want to encourage license proliferation by accepting projects using licenses that don't have widespread use and acceptance.

This week, however, Google nixed a highly popular, important license license: Mozilla Public License.

Google's Chris DiBona played the proliferation card again against the MPL, but also admitted that how Google determines whether a license is suitably popular is "so arbitrary." Great. That makes me feel better. At least there's a … Read more

Reddit chooses CPAL for open source license (Verdict: good move)

Reddit launched itself as an open source project today and chose the occasionally controversial CPAL license for the release.

There doesn't appear to be a goal of monetization as much as there is a goal of ubiquity through proliferation. If that were reversed there is no question that the GPL is a better choice.

I happen to think CPAL is exactly the right choice and here's why:

1. It's one of only 3 OSS licenses that take the "network" into account (CPAL, OSL, AGPL) whereby usage can be considered distribution. 2. It doesn't require … Read more

Differences between European and U.S. adoption of open source

In my role as pseudo general counsel at Alfresco, I wade through a lot of contracts. As part of this, I'm constantly trying to find the right balance between the needs of our customers and partners in different geographies.

Interestingly, our European and North American customers view licensing very, very differently. Generally speaking, our European customers want our software under an open-source license (GPLv2). North Americans? They want the benefits of open source without the obligations and perceived risk (meaning, they prefer a dual-license approach that allows them to contribute back modifications if they wish, but not out of duty).

I've been trying to figure out why the two geographies, surrounded only by the Atlantic Ocean, have such different perspectives on licensing. I believe it comes down to this: governments versus private corporations.… Read more

OSI gives two Microsoft licenses its blessing

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) has formally approved two of Microsoft's licenses:

Microsoft Public License and Microsoft Reciprocal License I never doubted that these would be approved, but am glad to see the studied manner in which the process was (mostly) carried out. To me, this shows Microsoft the correct way to engage in open source: through the front door, rather than through back-door patent FUD.

Michael Tiemann of OSI writes on the process:… Read more

Who decides what "distribution" means in open-source licenses?

I had dinner with a friend the other night. He works at a large retailer on the IT side and was telling me why he and his company are reluctant to embrace GNU General Public License (GPL)-licensed code. In sum, he didn't want to have to release source code. In my never-ending quest to foist the GPL on anyone with a pulse, I took issue with his concern.

"You're an end-user of software, not a distributor thereof. Why should you care about open source requirements relative to your source code? Open source licensing is triggered on distribution."

To this, he raised an interesting, and valid, point, and one that I had heard from a large financial services company before:

"But what about a distribution within the company to a subsidiary or some other corporate affiliate? It's an open question whether that counts as a distribution or not."… Read more

Adobe's Apollo and the pressing need to upgrade open-source licensing

I was just geeking out (to the maximum extent that I am technically capable, which means, not much) on Adobe's Apollo site at the suggestion of a friend. Wow. This completely breaks the paradigm of how we (or, at least, I) think about computing.

We talk a lot about mixed source. You know, open-source and proprietary software, living in perfect harmony. But that is nowhere near as interesting as true mixed source: desktop code intermingled with "cloud" code. What happens when the line between my desktop and the Internet blur to the extent that I neither know nor care where one ends and the other begins?

Microsoft has a desktop fetish that inhibits its ability to think cogently online. Google has the opposite problem. Adobe, however, seems to be striking the balance just right, what with its symbiotic balance between Web technologies (Macromedia) and desktop technologies (Adobe).

While I eagerly, hungrily anticipate The Big Blur, I can't help but worry about open source's lack of preparation. Our licensing debates will soon smack of silly sciolism as the Web moves offline and the desktop moves online. What relevance do 99 percent of our licenses have to this blurred world? Not very much.… Read more

Open source legal: Baptism by immersion

Linux.com is reporting on a great new program offered by the Software Freedom Law Center, called the "Open Source Law Immersion Program." It's designed to give practicing attorneys the information they need to successfully grok open source (maybe so that they don't come up with "No open source" clauses in their licenses.

The Software Freedom Law Center is now inviting applications for a resident legal experience designed for practicing lawyers interested in learning more about open source software through direct on-site exposure to SFLC's open source software law practice. Positions are somewhat … Read more