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

[Nathan Kelley]

To Tom Harwood <tharwood at macromedia.com>,

>> From: Tom Harwood <tharwood at macromedia.com>,
> From: Tom Harwood <tharwood at macromedia.com>,

> 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.

The Common Public License is essentially identical to the IBM Public 
License but with vendor-neutral wording AND an additional clause under 
item 7 that states the way in which the license can be modified.

Using an existing license that does nothing other than change the names, 
jurisdictions, and similar points should not invalidate the licenses' 
OSI certification status. Unfortunately, I can't find any statements 
from the OSI board to this effect. As a member of the community, 
however, I have no objects to this approach at all.

>> (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.

Item (2) is certainly a problem, and I have discussed this in another 
e-mail.

Item (3) is not a problem, as the provisions of Item 3 in the Macromedia 
Open Source License Agreement v1.0 allow any Contributor, including 
Macromedia, to distribute the software under its' own license agreement, 
even if that software includes code others have contributed. 
Third-parties are not being denied any specific rights that Macromedia 
has under that Item, provided they contribute to the software.

In addition, since Macromedia owns the code it produces, it is perfectly 
free to make that code available under this license and under a 
different license simultaneously. This practice is already semi-common 
within the open source and free software communities.

If the license is OSI certified, it should in no way discourage a 
co-operative relationship with said community of developers and 
end-users. A license that asserts unequal rights for the originator 
would normally not be able to gain OSI certification.

>> (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.

This would depend if the complier back-end includes code that is 
copyright to Macromedia and licensed under this license. The output from 
a program wouldn't normally be covered by the same license as the 
program itself. If the output is covered by the same license, and the 
book in question included the source in printed form, then I would 
imagine that book is effectively distributing the source code, and the 
copyright + license would need to be included.

This is an area I'm not very sure in. I would suggest other list 
subscribers might be able to better qualify this.

> 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?

I wouldn't think so. I for one have no overall dislike of this license, 
and I believe most of the discussion to date has been about improving 
the license or, with the suggestion of the CPL, using an alternative 
that is already OSI certified. All contributions to the open source 
community, whether from individuals or from commercial vendors, are 
valuable.

Cheers, Nathan.
________________________________________________
Nathan "Phyax" Kelley

    email | phyax at runbox.com, phyax at mac.com
      icq | 4618849
    yahoo | phyax
________________________________________________

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