CSuite

[John Cowan]

David Murdoch wrote:

> Thank you for your generous feedback.

Sure.
 
> Except for one concern, I see no barriers to writing a license, if one
> does not already exist, that addresses all of your points.

Wow.  I suggest that you use an existing license from the list at
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ .  The QPL (http://www.trolltech.com/qpl/)
is probably the closest to your existing license: it requires other people
to distribute changes only as patches, but allows you to incorporate their
patches into the next release.

You could then rewrite much of your existing license into advisory form
("Please do this, and this, and this") and include it along with the new license,
preferably in a separate file.
 
> My concern is related to the component parts of CSuite that were
> developed elsewhere (Pine, Lynx, majordomo, apache, zmailer and
> others). Each has been modified for integration and source code is
> distributed with CSuite.

All of these AFAIK are OSI-licensed, so you are essentially in the
same position as a Linux distributor: you are modifying them to fit
your particular environment.  No problem.
 
> How could CSuite meet OSI requirements yet not infringe the licenses
> of these programs developed by others if they are not OSI?

Remember that your license applies only to code that you originated.
As long as you are lawfully distributing other people's code under
their licenses, there is no OSI problem. 

-- 

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <jcowan at reutershealth.com>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,  || http://www.reutershealth.com
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,           || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.            -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)