ExtJS: When open source is not open at all
I was really excited to hear about ExtJS the other day. It was billed as an open-source JavaScript framework for building web applications. Great! I went to the company's website and learned that it's actually dual-licensed. Even better! Maximum licensing flexibility.
But then I went to the company's licensing page and things got murky really fast. It turns out that the ExtJS won't allow you to use Ext under its LGPL (3.0) license "[i]f you plan to distribute Ext in a product that will be packaged or sold as a software development library, toolkit or plug-in-based framework."
It's a bit like saying, "You can use this as open source so long as you use the software how we'd like you to use it. If you have any money, forget open source: pay us instead."
So how is this open source? This is a wholesale rejection of the Open Source Definition (#6). It's fine if ExtJS wants to distribute its software under a proprietary license, as it does today. But it's not fine for it to claim to be open source but then to constrain the use of its code in such a way that clearly makes it closed-source software.
Choose, ExtJS. Your current licensing model is not open source.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
I think they're almost there. For me the question is are the terms on their licensing page an attempt at paraphrasing the lgpl requirements (and if so, they've done a poor job at it), or are they an attempt to modify the lgpl license (in which case linking to gnu.org's lgpl license is very misleading. The lgpl explicity gives rights the expanatory terms are trying to deny.
I suspect the former, and the sooner they clear it up the better. Getting off on the wrong foot can take quite a bit to recover from. If they're smart they'll be hauling a few execs into license training class double quick to nip this one in the bud.
The distribution appears to be a collection of works under several licenses already. There isn't a copy of the GPL and LGPL included other than by reference which attempts to steer the distribution receiver to the license page. On the one hand, the reservation could have been put in place by someone attempting to look out for legal interests and not having a clear understanding of the GPL. You could wonder if it is deliberate and I'd suggest in both cases it would be proper to bring this to the attention of the copyright owner requesting clarification.
I'd imagine that if the software is as potentially popular as it seems from support forums and this blog, that it should be possible to acquire a copy of the collective works with modifications distributed under the LGPL/GPL where the collective works authors should they choose to object to exercising one of the four GPL freedoms, would be arguing that they both gave permission to distribute under the LGPL and added an additional term not permitted under the GPL (the LGPL giving adjunct permissions to those found in the GPL). It'd be nice to avoid the mess in the event FUD portrays the authors intent.
I appreciate the idea that they want to go open. I support them in that. I also appreciate that they want to make money. I support them in that, too. But they seem to be hamstrung trying to do the latter at the expense of the former. It doesn't have to be a conflict...but they apparently haven't figured that out yet.
Anyone can be Open Source, but having the code available does not make it yours to use as you see fit. That is the power of Free software.
To be sure, the economics and legalities of FOSS can be counter intuitive (until you have your FOSS epiphany) but given the already large and growing impact of FOSS on the IT landscape no significant technology provider or consumer can afford to ignore the issue. One way or another, business needs to get up to speed on just what FOSS is and how it operates. I hope it's no longer a matter of combating anti-FOSS FUD (I believe that horse died at the hands of MS's flogging) but rather practical business reality.
To add insult to injury, the previous version had BSD license.
Something that has ben pointed out by others after many companies have backed down on (their) violation of the GPL the moment it got legal and they had to hire in a specialist, is that while most companies have a legal departement, very few have a copyright or patent specialist in house and as copyright is such a beautifully complex area, even if you have passed the bar exam and been practicing for decades, it's entirely possible the Janitor knows more than you when it comes to software licensing.
Maybe if someone with more experience and better standing than I contacted them and suggested they ran this problem past the SFLC? It's either that or they're liable to come very unstuck should they try to sue someone who's not actually violating the license they released the code under.
As for them not being open source, that depends on what you consider open source. For those that do not fall within that restriction, I am sure they consider it open source.
I applaud Ext's effort to do something that is actually useful instead of following the path of others that choose to dual license with GPL and a commercial license. Those companies would pass YOUR "open source" definition, but are much more restricted in use ExtJS.
Based on this, it would be my reading as a lawyer that anyone who wants to may use ExtJS' code under the LGPL, regardless of its text to the contrary. That text doesn't create a contract.
Why doesn't the company simply tidy up its licensing rather than relying on FUD to pitch its proprietary license?
Your reply doesn't seem to be a reply to my comment since you are making a point that is totally unrelated. Your post title is not only misleading, it's inaccurate. For vast majority of users, Ext is very much an open source library. No comment on that?
As for your interpretation of their license, you are also inaccurate. Ext is not distributed with the LGPL license. It is distributed under their own license (LICENSE.TXT). Every source file also points to this license, not the LGPL. In that license, they grant usage under the LGPL terms provided that your aren't creating a library or framework that competes with them. Granting usage under the terms of the LGPL vs distributing with the LGPL license are very different things. Before accusing anyone of wrong-doing you should make sure you are right.
As I stated before, their license is much better than the restrictive GPL guys you love and generally blog about positively. Just because it's not the norm, doesn't make it bad.
You say "Ext is not distributed with the LPGL license". The website license page says: "Ext is also available under the terms of the Open Source LGPL 3.0 license. " and it provides a link to the LPGL license in GNU site.
If they don't like LGPL and have a different license as you suggest, they should just call it ExtJS license. They have the right to do so. They can then get OSI to recognize it as open source compatible license if they care to. As it can be seen from the ink in Matt's post however, ExtJS license does not seem to meet the open source definition item 6.
"Before accusing anyone of wrong-doing you should make sure you are
As I stated in my previous comment: granting usage under the terms of the LGPL within their license is not the same as distributing the code under LGPL.
Even if you are using it in the open source LGPL capacity, they have a separate license for their assets 9images and CSS) which prohibit use outside Ext. What kinda OSS is this?? Why not just be honest and just make the product commercialware.
Alex Rusell from Dojo has publicly spoken out the ExtJS licensing scam on ajaxian, and a scam it is. Sooner or later some company is going to go after them for pulling up an illegitimate license. Its quite surprising that so many Ext users haven't paid attention to this.
I will not be touching ExtJS anytime soon.
- by elucify May 2, 2008 12:12 PM PDT
- OSI defines "open source" with the broadest possible brush. They have unfortunately coopted several different terms under a single rubrick that already had a meaning. So their attempts to clarify and advocate have ended up causing more confusion. As exemplified by this column, for example.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(18 Comments)Open Source and Free Software (free as in speech, or as in beer) are different things. The problem is OSI's co-opting of existing terms, not ExtJS's licensing.