[Mulgara-dev] Documentation and License question

[Paul Gearon]

Another point....

The license only has teeth to the point that someone chooses to  
enforce it.  The only people likely to care are us (though it's  
*possible* for a third party to get involved - but why would they  
care?).  We're happy with anyone who wants to use Mulgara.  For most  
of us, the only time licensing becomes a concern is if someone uses  
the Mulgara with:
a) no acknowledgment to us (hey, we have our pride)
b) added features/fixes that they won't share (the REAL point of an  
open source license).

Recall that we did not choose the OSL because it contains a specific  
set of features, but because it was one of the only licenses  
compatible with the MPL which we had been using previously.  Of  
course, if there were a problem we'd politely point it out before  
going any further.  After all, lawyers are EXPENSIVE.

So, as long as you're trying to do the right thing, then there  
shouldn't be any concerns.  The mere fact that you're concerned about  
it indicates that you'll be fine.  :-)

Of course, this isn't legal advice; my statements here cannot be  
construed as a contract or obligation; etc, etc, etc.  I'm just  
pointing out that we're all friends here and want to help out anyone  
who wants to use Mulgara.

Regards,
Paul Gearon

On Aug 30, 2007, at 9:58 PM, David Wood wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> IANAL, so Paul is only partially correct :)  Still, he has his  
> facts right as far as I can see.
>
> The vast majority of Open Source Software licenses have not been  
> tested in court, especially not in all jurisdictions.  However,  
> they have been written to be as clear and applicative as lawyers  
> can make them.  *I* interpret the OSL's requirement to "provide"  
> source code like this:
>
> (1) You may link to an Internet-accessible location operated by a  
> third party where the source code may be found.
> (2) If (and only if) the source code location becomes unavailable,  
> then you still have an obligation to provide the source code.
> (3) You must comply with all other aspects of the license, such as  
> providing attribution.
>
> Point (2) has required Mulgara, for example, to point to our own  
> forks of some projects where the source code has ceased to be made  
> available by the original maintainers.  We conduct a review of our  
> legal requirements prior to every release to make certain that we  
> comply.  Not all OSS projects do this, but naturally you should.
>
> You might look at Mulgara's LEGAL.txt file to see how we handle  
> this requirement for the OSS code that we include in our distribution:
>
>   https://mulgara.org/svn/mulgara/trunk/LEGAL.txt
>
> Of course, since I am not a lawyer, this cannot be legal advice.   
> You should properly read the license yourself and comply in the way  
> that you interpret it.  Whew!  That made me sound like one, didn't  
> it? :)
>
> Good luck with your release!
>
> Regards,
> Dave
>
> --
> http://prototypo.blogspot.com
>
>
> On 30 Aug2007, at 22:22, Paul Gearon wrote:
>
>> Hi David,
>>
>> On 8/30/07, David Moll <DMoll at myaperio.com> wrote:
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> Viewpoint Data Management is preparing for our version 1.0  
>>> release of
>>> Aperio.  We are curious as to the preferred manner for  
>>> referencing our use
>>> of Mulgara in the project.
>>>
>>> At the moment we are considering something to the effect of:
>>>
>>> Aperio  Copyright (c) 2007 Viewpoint Data Management, LLC.
>>>
>>> The Mulgara Semantic Store is licensed under the Open Software  
>>> License
>>> version 1.1 for more info see: www.mulgara.org
>>>
>>> That should probably be changed to reference the Open Software  
>>> License
>>> version 3.0 to reflect to Mulgara web page.
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>>> Do we need to include a copy of the OSL v3.0 with the product?
>>
>> I don't believe so.  I'm pretty sure you could either have a link to
>> the original source:
>>   http://www.opensource.org/licenses/osl-3.0.php
>> Or maybe even our own copy of the license, which is at:
>>   http://docs.mulgara.org/legal/OSL-3.0.txt
>>
>> David Wood is the one to give a definitive answer to this.
>>
>>> Do we need to include a copy of the source code to Mulgara with  
>>> the product?
>>
>> I hope not!
>>
>> Section 3 of the OSL says:
>> "Licensor agrees to provide a machine-readable copy of the Source  
>> Code
>> of the Original Work along with each copy of the Original Work that
>> Licensor distributes."
>>
>> Since there is no formal definition of "provides", then you just take
>> the common English interpretation.  I believe that you are fine if
>> you provide a link to the download for the version you are running.
>> I'm not sure if it's considered "providing" if the link is to a file
>> on mulgara.org, plus you run the long term risk of the link going
>> stale if anything untoward happens at our end.  We ran into exactly
>> this problem ourselves with the last release of Mulgara!  (Thank
>> goodness for the Wayback Machine!)
>>
>> I think that it's fine to just link to our released src.tar.gz file
>> (assuming you're using a released version).  Otherwise, just tar up a
>> copy for your own server, and distribute that link.  (We've done that
>> for a couple of libraries we're using).
>>
>> Again, David Wood is the one to speak to.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Paul Gearon
>> _______________________________________________
>> Mulgara-dev mailing list
>> Mulgara-dev at mulgara.org
>> http://mulgara.org/mailman/listinfo/mulgara-dev
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mulgara-dev mailing list
> Mulgara-dev at mulgara.org
> http://mulgara.org/mailman/listinfo/mulgara-dev