Alfresco shifts to GPL

[Matthew Flaschen]

Matt Asay wrote:
> Indeed, I've been working toward this for the past 1.5 years.

Congratulations.
> On that note, I want to express thanks to everyone on this list who helped
> to hound us (and others).

Sure.  Now go out and be a successful example. ;) On that note, I don't
get "We provide Community free of charge and offer no support for the
product, paid or otherwise"
(http://www.alfresco.com/legal/licensing/whitepaper/).  If you really
want "encourage everyone to use the GPL" then why won't you *sell*
support for the GPL version?  Everyone says they're going to charge for
support but then instead makes money off these illusory Enterprise
editions, which in your case are apparently bit-for-bit identical, yet
somehow "better tested" or "certified".  Other parts of that white paper
are sketchy too, like "if you are distributing unmodified copies of
Alfresco Community over a Web site, please do this by providing a link
directly to our site" and "Alfresco users may freely modify our source
code without contributing anything back to us, provided that they do not
distribute these derivative works."  On the latter, maybe it's mixing up
contributing back (i.e. copyright assignment) with GPL licensing.

However, kudos on "To make this easier for you, our source downloads –
as opposed to our binaries – do not include our logos."

Matthew Flaschen

> As ever, the open source community's best policing mechanism is peer
> pressure.  
> 
> Matt 
> 
> 
>> From: Matthew Flaschen <matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu>
>> Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 06:13:50 -0500
>> To: License Discuss <license-discuss at opensource.org>
>> Subject: Re: Alfresco shifts to GPL
>>
>> Mark Wielaard wrote:
>>> Some good news in the license consolidation (and badgeware) discussion:
>>>
>>>         The company's free Community edition previously used the Mozilla
>>>         Public License, but the move to GPL removes some barriers, said
>>>         Matt Asay, Alfresco's vice president of marketing. The company's
>>>         supported and Enterprise edition remains available under a
>>>         commercial license.
>>>         
>>>         "We wanted the code to be bigger than the company," Asay said.
>>>         "People basically know what (the GPL) means, so there's no time
>>>         wasted wondering (about) MPL [and extra exhibit B clauses]."
>>>         
>>>         [...]
>>>         
>>>         the company did add to the GPL license a "FLOSS exception"
>>>         provision that permits the software to be embedded in other
>>>         FLOSS (free/libre/open-source software) packages. With the
>>>         exception, those other projects don't have to worry about a
>>>         potential requirement to release their own software under the
>>>         GPL, Asay said.
>> Excellent.  I remember Matt Asay saying he was working towards a GPL
>> release.  It looks like he pulled it off. :)  Now, maybe he can start a
>> trend.
>>
>> Matt Flaschen
>>
> 
> 
> 
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