[Sussex] Licenses

[Steve Dobson]

Hi John

On Thu, 2008-11-20 at 15:24 +0000, John Patrick wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> This is maybe something that could be chat about at the next Moot.

We could do and if you want more information from me then I will be
there to answer any more of your questions as best I can, or we can
continue this on-list.

Here are my thoughts on the subject:

> What licenses do people use?
> 
> I've got the following senarios that I'm currently trying to work out
> the best license for.
> 
> Presentation, say I give a presentation at a LUG would creative
> commons be the most appropriate but which bits.

You may present using whatever license you wish.  But if you want your
presentation uploaded to the website (if we ever get it back :-) then
you must either:
	1). Use a free license such as CC, or
	2). Assign copyright over to SLUG in which case it will be
		licensed under a CC license.
		
I would recommend an attribution license with no commercial use, but
allow derivatives.  That will yet you recognition and allow anyone using
the presentation to upgrade it as the tech is likely to change over
time.

> Presentation, my own company give training presentation on something,
> so i want my company to be appropriately acknowledged.

This is really a question for your company's lawyers.  As you wrote the
presentation on company time they own the copyright and not you (well
that's normally the case with your T&Cs[1]).

> Application, open source utility written in Java, i want to it to be
> open but i would like acknowledgement of my work.

What do you mean by "open source"?  Do you mean source code that would
be compatible with a Free License, such as the GPL, or one that would
not?

Which ever license you use you still retain copyright.  That means that
*your* copyright notice *must* remain intact, although other
contributors may add their own.  If you accept their code into yours
then you have to accept their copyright too and may not remove it unless
you remove (re-code) the code they contributed.

Also you may not license it under a different license without there
permission - you might want to do this if a company approaches you and
wants to buy an special license just for them because they don't wish to
publish the code they will be merging it with.

> Application, my own company developer software that customers buy.
> Application, my own company developer software that customers license
> access too or use of.

Again the company owns it so they get to choose, not you.  If there is
no precedent within the company for open sourcing code then get it in
writing.  As this is code from which a revenue stream is expected I'd
get it in writing anyway.  Customers may get shirty or complain if they
find that code they paid for was also available free.

> I've recently read up more on all the different types but seam to have
> gotten more confused than when i started. So was wondering what people
> on the list use.

It is somewhat of a minefield and IANAL.  I'll happy explain my views and
what I would do, but they come with no legal guarantee of being best
practise.

Personal I prefer to use the GPL and the LGPL (language used is not
important here for me).  Which depends upon weather the code is a library
or not.  But even when it is a library I would still rather use the GPL
to "force" users to contribute back to the community.

Sun has also shown a likely for [L]GPLing their code where they can.  Who
would have thought that Java would have been released under the GPL?  But
not that OpenSolaris uses its own license, and one where any contributions
are owned by Sun (either solely or in tandem with the contributor) so that
Sun may re-license Solaris to any one in any way they want.  While I don't 
like this kind of sign over I can see why Sun would require it for their
business.

Hope that helps.

See you next week
Steve

[1] Some T&Cs even have everything you write, even stuff on your own
time, as belonging to them.[2]

[2] I do not sign such terms and conditions.

-- 
Steve Dobson

Diplomacy is the art of letting the other party have things your way.
-- Daniele Vare

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