I'm leaning toward going with gplv3 but...

[Wilson, Andrew]

Aaron Aichlmayr [mailto:waterfoul at gmail.com] wrote:

> First I wanted to have an extension system where the extension
> devs are encouraged to share but are allowed to keep their extensions in
> house as long as they did not edit the original code.

The 'not editing the original code' part makes it hard for me to see
how you can use an open source license.  All open source licenses
allow you to edit the code.  Some licenses may require you to mark your changes
to distinguish them from the original.  Many, such as Apache, say you can't
use the original name with modified code without the original licensor's permission.
However, the ability to create derivatives is fundamental to free/open source code.

Perhaps what you want is a non-free (as in freedom) but free distribution (as in beer)
license for your core SW.  At Intel, we use such a license for our processor microcode updates.
You can make as many copies as you want for $0 but you can't decompile or change
the microcode.

If you want to build an ecosystem of shared code around your unchangeable core SW, you
could apply a weak copyleft license (such as LGPL, Eclipse or CDDL) to the
extension framework itself and its API, ensuring that derivatives of that framework would be
shared in source.

IANAL, TINLA, and you emphatically need a real lawyer.

Andy Wilson
Intel open source technology center