[IPT] IPT Open source License

[Beach, James H]

Many thanks Pat, 

I am going to dig right into this.

Happy Darwin's Birthday!

Jim B.

_____________________________
James H. Beach
Biodiversity Institute
University of Kansas
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
T 785 864-4645, F 785 864-5335

No engagement = No commitment.
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Mergen Patricia [mailto:patricia.mergen at africamuseum.be] 
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 3:49 PM
To: Bob Morris; Beach, James H
Cc: ipt at lists.gbif.org; ram at cs.umb.edu
Subject: RE: [IPT] IPT Open source License

This project has made a quiet nice and recent review on the different
open Source Licences with pro and cons
http://www.cascadoss.eu/en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=61&
Itemid=68
If it can be of any help ...

Best regards

Pat 


-----Original Message-----
From: ipt-bounces at lists.gbif.org on behalf of Bob Morris
Sent: Thu 22/01/2009 23:27
To: Beach, James H
Cc: ipt at lists.gbif.org; ram at cs.umb.edu
Subject: Re: [IPT] IPT Open source License
 
I can't.

I only have a few  relevant(?) opinions:

- The main downside to viral licenses is usually that they discourage
corporations from wrapping the licensed code with something of theirs.
 For Specify, about all this is likely to mean is the kEmu can't adopt
any Specify code. Is that bad?  (You may want a strategy with separate
services that make it easy for people to make connections to Specify
servers without having to use Specify code though.  This could be a
small code base you isolate from Specify and license with a non-viral
license, or just plain Web Services).

- A software IPR attorney I heard talk once said that FOSS licensing is
so tied up with U.S. IPR law, that most licenses are not very relevant
or understandable overseas and present tremendous legal burdens to
adoption and even acceptance by organizations that actually care what
their license obligations are. She observed that the U.S.
has 1000 times as many lawyers per capita as almost any other country in
the world and reasoned that there are not enough anywhere outside the
U.S. to advise most users of FOSS licenses.  IMO, this favors simpler,
better understood, widely used licenses over those that aren't all these
things.

- Dual licensing may obviate some of these issues in that you could fork
different licenses from the unlicensed code base. This isn't ideal,
because you'd have divergent code bases, whereas your development
probably would take place in your most restrictive license (else why
would you have it?) and so not be available in the other branches.

Bob


On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Beach, James H <beach at ku.edu> wrote:
>
> Could anyone comment on the choice of the Mozilla Public License for 
> the IPT?  I'm curious about which property made it the best choice.
>
> I'm reviewing (for the third time) FOSS licenses for Specify 6, and am

> going through the usual decision tree:
>
> viral vs. non-viral
>
> GPL compatible or not
>
> and the various nuances of each license.
>
> I noticed that IPT is parked on Google Code, and then discovered this.
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/25/googlecode_bans_mpl/
>
> many thanks,
>
> Jim B.
>
> _____________________________
> James H. Beach
> Biodiversity Institute
> University of Kansas
> 1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
> Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
> T 785 864-4645, F 785 864-5335
>
> No engagement = No commitment.
>
>
>



-- 

Robert A. Morris
Professor of Computer Science
UMASS-Boston
ram at cs.umb.edu
http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/
http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram
http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram/calendar.html
phone (+1)617 287 6466
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