[discuss] License Approval Request: Macromedia Open Source Li cense

[Tom Harwood]

Thanks, everyone, for your comments.  I am summarizing the discussion for Macromedia's Legal department and for the management, my understanding of the issues is:

> (1) changed IBM to Macromedia, 
> (5) changed the choice of law from New York to California.

These are known issues with the IBM Public License.  In the short term, the best course of action is to use the Common Public License, which is also derived from the IBM license, with more vendor-neutral wording.  Based on some comments, I understand that the community is also OK with a pseudo-templatized license that makes the substitutions described above.

> (2) clarify that if Macromedia includes its own open source in its products, 
> Macromedia does not have to state in its documentation where the source code 
> version of the open source material is made available, 
> (3) clarify that Macromedia does not have to include its own copyright notice
> in the event Macromedia decides to incorporate its own open source materials in its commercial products, 

There is a business case that argues against these clauses.  One of the principal reasons a corporation distributes open-source software is encourage a cooperative relationship with a large community of developers and end users [insert standard business case for open source].  These license terms discourage the formation of this cooperative relationship by asserting unequal rights for one partner.  Specifically, unless and until others contribute to Macromedia's open source products, Macromedia retains copyright to all materials and is perfectly free to do whatever it likes with them; it is only when Macromedia wishes to take advantage of the work of other partners in this relationship that the quid pro quo comes into play: the corporation might acquire the copyright to the new work, and again be a free agent, or continue in the "freely given, freely accepted" mode.  Alternatively, of course, the corporation might choose not to use this new work at all, and rely solely on the work of its own engineers.

> (4) require the inclusion of the copyright notice in documentation as well as the software,

There is concern the term "documentation" is loose enough to cause these license terms to bleed onto works that Macromedia is in no way associated with.  Unfortunately, this list's archive doesn't seem to be searchable, so I have made up an example:

One of the products Macromedia may open source is BURG (a tool that generates compiler back ends).  If an independent party created a compiler using this back end, and wrote a book about this compiler -- never having modified Macromedia's code in any way, having only used it to generate part of this hypothetical compiler -- then one might argue that the book must include Macromedia's license terms.

Is this a reasonable example?

A final question.  I will also be asked to report the overall status of the license approval process.  I am a newbie to this list and to the process of creating open-source licenses in general.  Is the discussion to date indicative of an overall dislike of this proposed license, to the level where a vote on certification would likely fail?

Thanks again!
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Tom Harwood
Macromedia Server Products
CFML Language Development
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