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Dear Carl,<br>
<br>
Sorry in advance - I know that this kind of discussion is rather
dangerous. I don't want to start a big thing here as this is not the
right list for it.<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:8CBCCEE2D9CECF4CAFFF17DE494047A801CFAB33@exchange-2.kb.dk"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Who appointed opensource.org, to define the term "open source" ?
</pre>
</blockquote>
Nobody appointed them but the term "open source" was coined to mean
"free software" and this site lists a few clear criteria for such
software. These criteria are also fulfilled by the licenses of many
projects that describe themselves as open source or free software.<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:8CBCCEE2D9CECF4CAFFF17DE494047A801CFAB33@exchange-2.kb.dk"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">As I understand copyright laws NO LEGALLY BINDING LICENSE can fulfill those criteria, since they would then violate the creators moral rights, thus making those licenses void.</pre>
</blockquote>
Does this mean that you consider the license of opencms to not be
binding? If you should have a right to use opencms, then it can only
come from those who licensed the code and from you accepting the
license - in this case LGPL.<br>
<br>
About the "moral rights of the creator": Nobody is forced to license
one's work under these terms and nobody is forced to use a work of
others that is licensed under these terms. Free software licenses are
just licenses: somebody makes a piece of software available under
certain conditions that the licensee must fulfill to be allowed to use
that software. Also, very importantly, the original copyright holder
does _not_ give up any rights - he only grants some non-exclusive
rights to others, like any license does. And the copyright holder can
individually negotiate completely different terms with different
people, sell the copyrighted work to some under commercial licenses
with totally different terms, etc. There are lots of projects that are
dual-licensed. Then the licensee can usually choose to either pay and
accept the commercial terms or not pay and accept the open source terms.<br>
<br>
Even Microsoft has licensed a few small programs in a way that matches
the list on opensource.org and the whole foundation of MacOS is
licensed under a BSD-Style license. And of course, there is Firefox,
Safari, Chrome, Eclipse, Netbeans, Tomcat, the upcoming Java 7, Lucene,
etc. Of course, nobody is forced to use any of these, but it surely is
good software.<br>
<br>
By the way: I am not telling anybody which license to choose and how
many rights or obligations someone someone should grant - this is
completely the choice of the creator of a work. But if a license does
not allow redistribution of modified code, then it might be clearer to
say "this is commercial software, but when you buy it, it also comes
with the source code". Then everybody knows, what to expect.<br>
<br>
Of course, we can just agree to disagree on any of these points. :-)
By the way: nothing here is intended as a personal attack or something
like that.<br>
<br>
Best Regards<br>
Christian<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:8CBCCEE2D9CECF4CAFFF17DE494047A801CFAB33@exchange-2.kb.dk"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
To me "open source" means that the source is available - nothing more - nothing less.
The information is available to the public, but the terms of its use may be restricted.
Don't listen to those ivory tower aristocrats.
Cheers,
Carl
-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:opencms-dev-bounces@opencms.org">opencms-dev-bounces@opencms.org</a> [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:opencms-dev-bounces@opencms.org">mailto:opencms-dev-bounces@opencms.org</a>] På vegne af Andreas Kuckartz
Sendt: 1. juli 2009 10:55
Til: The OpenCms mailing list
Emne: [opencms-dev] "commercial open source license" (Re: comundus connects jBPM workflow engine with OpenCms)
Schliemann, Kai wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">We decided to license this module under a commercial open source
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->license. Meaning that one has to pay for the module but gets the source
code with it.
Does your license comply with the criteria contained in The Open Source
Definition (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://opensource.org/docs/osd">http://opensource.org/docs/osd</a>) ?
Please do not use the term "open source" if that is not the case.
Cheers,
Andreas
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
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