[License-discuss] Looking for a license agreement.

[John Cowan]

Rudy Lippan scripsit:

> So what I would like to do is tie the license of the software
> to the user of the software respecting the licenses of the
> community-distributed components they use, whether or not the
> individual component is eligible for copyright protection.

I would just ignore the question of copyrightability, and treat all
components as if they were under copyright.

> I would also like to have a framework where components could require
> automatic redistribution of modifications---a contributor could select
> a mandatory/automatic redistribution license.

I'd recommend that you use the Apache 2.0 license for the core and the
non-restrictive components, while allowing contributors to license
components with "LGPL 3 or later" language.  These licenses are agreed
to be compatible.  Any distribution not including a LGPLed component can
be freely distributed with or without source; if the LGPLed component is
included, it at least must be distributed with source.

> While I understand the desire for someone to remove/disable/firewall
> off the automatic redistribution functionality for security or other
> reasons, it would be nice to say "If you disable this part of the
> system, you are restricted from using contributed components that
> require this functionality as a condition of your use".

You can't restrict how people use copyrighted works by reason of the
copyright alone: you can only control how they copy, distribute, or
modify them.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org   http://ccil.org/~cowan
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