[License-discuss] Is what's made with Open Source, Open Source?

[Maximilian]

On 10/06/2015 12:33, Gareth Edwards wrote:
> The big thing everyone wants to know (and no-one seems to be able to
> answer), is are the apps made with Rapid also Open Source, i.e. are
> app creators obliged to share the code and files for apps they've made
> using Rapid with the rest of the Rapid community? 

Hello,

This post might seem a bit long - I'm just throwing a few ideas up into
the air here with the usual disclaimers and hoping others will comment
and correct me where I'm wrong.

I had a quick look at Rapid - sounds interesting and something that I
would certainly find useful for, ahem, /rapid/ development and
prototyping and for building admin interfaces for backends :)

To answer your question in brief - not typically.

There would be two ways of looking at the question of whether the "apps
made wth Rapid [are] also Open Source":
1.    the licensing terms of Rapid require app developers to release any
applications created with it under a specified licence (e.g. GPLv3); or
2.    apps built on Rapid are derivative works of Rapid itself and
therefore remain within the GPLv3

Regarding point one, the GPLv3 doesn't allow for this. If it did, for
example, documents made with LibreOffice would themselves be licensed
under the GPLv3. Technically I think it would be possible for such a
licence to still be compatible with the Open Source Definition, although
I can't name a licence like that off the top of my head.

With respect to point two, you'd need to show that the apps built using
Rapid are actually derived works. From the viewpoint of the Free
Software Foundation, they would probably see that as the apps are
completely dependent on Rapid, perhaps moreso than a software library,
the apps would therefore form "derivative works" and be licensed under
the GPL. I don't know how successful that argument would be in court,
and especially here as the apps are not seen as modifications or
improvements to Rapid but instead apps in their own right which are
merely interpreted by/linked to Rapid.

Another thing to note is that the GPL only really takes effect on
distribution or propagation of software. Therefore, even if apps were
somehow required to be licensed under the GPLv3 or were otherwise
considered derivative works, app creators wouldn't actually be obliged
to share the code and files with others where they were merely
developing the apps for their own use. It's only where the developer
wants to give (or make available) the app to other people/entities where
that developer would be required to release the source code for that app.


TL;DR - if you really want to make sure that the apps created with Rapid
are themselves open source then you'd probably want some form of custom
OSD-compatible software licence.


Regards,
Max
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