Showing messages 1 through 18 of 18.

• Appropriate license for book / article code?
  2004-06-14 11:14:40 invalidname
  
  You wouldn't dream of grabbing huge swaths of a book and passing it off as your own writing, but don't many (most?) beginning programmers copy material verbatim from books and articles into their own work?
  
  As an author, I don't have a problem with this, but it seems like there's a double standard. I maintain a copyright on my writing, am paid for it, and I and/or my publisher would take action against someone who stole this work. Yet the code examples in my writing are meant to be taken and reused freely. It's not enough, IMHO, to describe the principles of some technique - if I think there's an ideal way to do something, I'll say "do it this way", and I would want a reader to take that code and use it verbatim.
  
  After all, if readers aren't taking the material and applying it to their own work, then there's no point writing the article or book in the first place.
  
  Aside from the double standard of treating an article as two separate entities from a copyright point-of-view (the jealously-defended prose versus the openly-offered code), there's also a question of what license works for the code. I had been putting GPL license statements on my QuickTime for Java code over on ONJava, and I've received requests to re-license it so it can be used commercial products, something I've always granted. Because the material is small and instructional in nature, my goal is not to get someone else to GPL their stuff, it's only to teach.
  
  I went over to Creative Commons to look for a custom license. I said I didn't want any restrictions on sharing - it's OK to use in proprietary, closed systems, make modifications to the code, not attribute me, etc. According to CC, that means it's effectively public domain.
  
  This, I think, is interesting. On the one hand, I feel I should maintain some copyright on the code - after all, I'm being paid for it, along with the article or book prose. But on the other hand, without an attribution requirement or any kind of restriction, does a copyright still exist? With no restriction on use, doesn't that effectively make it public domain?
  
  And aside from all these theoretical questions... what kinds of license would you like to see on articles posted on java.net or in books by your favorite publishers? If there were, say, an attribution requirement, would you be unable or unwilling to use such material in your work?
  
  --Chris (invalidname)
• Dual licence
  2004-06-21 06:55:34 zander
  
  What this seems to be is that you want to produce and licence your book under the closed license possible (since you probably want to get paid etc.)
  and release a CD (or a download from your site) with the code that is ALSO used in the book.
  
  Since you are the author of both that means you can re-licence your code if you re-release it.
  
  The CD you release with the book should then make clear the licence of the sources is something like the APACHE licence.
  
  I always prefer that one since it means everyone can use it without saying they got the code from your book, but using your name is illegal. So no products re-released in confusingly similar names.
• Appropriate license for book / article code?
  2004-06-15 09:30:20 mdi
  
  By "not attribute me" do you also mean that I could take your QTJ code, put my name on it, copyright it and sell it as a commercial product? If so, then you really do mean public domain.
  
  If that makes you uncomfortable, then I would suggest that you want limited attribution, and that the BSD license would be your best bet. "Do whatever you want, but I retain copyright and you have to acknowledge that."
• Another good reason to use a BSD license for book code
  2004-06-16 04:54:55 invalidname
  
  Practically the only things the BSD License concerns itself with are replicating the copyright statement and indemnifying authors from defects in the software. The MIT License is similar.
  
  And that indemnification might be a good thing to have on there, as pointed out by Bill Dudney's weblog, in which a bug in some Java Almanac code is found to be causing problems in multiple systems into which it has been pasted verbatim. By analogy, it's no stretch to imagine book or article code being similarly buggy.
  
  --Chris
• Appropriate license for book / article code?
  2004-06-16 04:45:54 invalidname
  
  So that's interesting. This seems to support the idea that some kind of restriction needs to be maintained to keep the copyright intact, and that acknowledging the copyright with a notice is the least intrusive way to do so.
• Appropriate license for book / article code?
  2004-06-24 00:02:57 zander
  
  | So that's interesting. This seems to support the idea
  | that some kind of restriction needs to be maintained
  | to keep the copyright intact,
  
  Any piece always retains its copyright, except when its been placed in the public domain explictly.
  What you are mistaking for licence 'rules' is actually a lack of the copyright system. There is no registry of any sort that allows you to find out if en by whom a piece is copyrighted.
  Make no mistake; if you find my sourcecode somewhere and somebody stripped the copyright notice so you feel its save to use it; I can still sue you for infringement.
  
  | that acknowledging the copyright with a notice is the
  | least intrusive way to do so.
  
  As said; any work is always copyrighted as soon as its placed on a tangible holder. There is ALWAYS a licence needed if you want to others to use or even copy it. No licence means nobody can use it.
  
  So, what this boils down to is that the licence saying it should stay with the copyrighted work effectively says the work will stay open and copyable.
• Appropriate license for book / article code?
  2004-06-14 23:27:16 jwenting
  
  I see no problems with using separate licensing for code and text.
  
  As long as the license for the code states it can be used as long as it is only by owners of the book I think you're covered.
  
  I fully agree that licenses that say the code cannot be used in any way are plain silly.
  Effectively those books say "you can learn whatever you want from me but you can never apply that knowledge". After all, most people don't copy code verbatim but rather take core fragments of it that are rather generic and form a best solution to various problems.
  They would likely have come up with the same in time had they not seen it in that book.
  
  I'm of course talking here about using code snippets, not large blocks of code.
  Those might be better of with an Apache style license ammended with (as I stated above) a clause that prohibits people from distributing it who don't own the book and to only distribute the code as part of a larger whole.
  An additional clause to prohibit distribution in a context that is in competition with the book would also be fitting.
  Such would allow any use of the code without restricting users to GPL their own work and at the same time protect the interests of the book author in that someone can't go around publishing the code on websites and in journals.

• Making the open-source case to your boss
  2004-06-07 05:27:18 invalidname
  
  "Your software must be free, but mine cannot be."
  
  You've heard this attitude before, right? Lots of us have worked at companies all too eager to use open-source software (under a variety of licenses), but loath to share their own. In fact, there's something of a backlash from managers concerned that a "viral license" will undermine their own IP rights.
  
  So, generally speaking, when can you use GPL or similarly-licensed software in a commercial product? Does it matter if you're selling a service rather than selling software? And is there usually a case for making your own stuff open-source?
  
  --Chris (invalidname)
• Is there usually a case for making your own stuff open-source?
  2004-06-08 10:45:31 johnreynolds
  
  It depends on what "your own stuff" is.
  
  If "your own stuff" is a building block, then you can probably make the case that open-sourcing it will share the burden of maintenance. With more users and more eyes on the code, more bugs will be found and squashed.
  
  If "your own stuff" encourages folks to buy other goods or services from your company, then you can definitely give it away for free, but it's less obvious why you would benefit from releasing the source (unless it needs to be ported). Obsolete versions of your product often fall into this category.
  
  If "your own stuff" is actually the product your company currently sells, then you are really going to have to stretch to justify giving it away or open-sourcing it. Either tactic will necessitate your company moving to a "charging-for-services" rather then "selling-products" business model.
  
  Returning to the "building blocks" case, it seems pretty obvious that companies that rely on selling "building blocks" need to worry.
  The IT community as a whole has great incentive to open-source every building-block imagineable. Frameworks, user interface components, databases, app-servers, etc. are all available as open-source offerings with well-funded ongoing development. It's pretty clear that a business model based on selling infrastructure isn't going to succeed.
• Been there, bought the T-Shirt
  2004-06-07 14:56:38 mdi
  
  I've worked for several companies that were very keen on using GPL software, and then making sure that our software never linked close enough to require distributing our code. If we modified the GPL code, we released our changes, of course.
  
  We played up the "Open Source" card in our marketing, but never really released much code.
• Been there, bought the T-Shirt
  2004-06-09 00:29:55 jwenting
  
  nothing wrong with that in my view.
  
  I'm pragmatic about it. If someone releases something for free use I'll use it if I have a use for it and am legally able to use it.
  If I have a contribution I can make to that project I will, but I won't let anyone force me how to release my own products (which is why I steer well clear of anything GPL, GPL forces you into a licensing structure I don't want).
• Selling a service
  2004-06-07 14:54:41 mdi
  
  My reading of the GPL FAQ leads me to believe that under GPL 2 running a piece of modified software on a website for the public to interact with does not qualify as distribution:

  A company is running a modified version of a GPL'ed program on a web site. Does the GPL say they must release their modified sources?
  The GPL permits anyone to make a modified version and use it without ever distributing it to others. What this company is doing is a special case of that. Therefore, the company does not have to release the modified sources.

  This would seem to imply that selling a service using modified GPL software without distributing the original source, modified source, binaries, or anything else, is perfectly legal
  However, also from the same FAQ entry:

  It is essential for people to have the freedom to make modifications and use them privately, without ever publishing those modifications. However, putting the program on a server machine for the public to talk to is hardly "private" use, so it would be legitimate to require release of the source code in that special case. We are thinking about doing something like this in GPL version 3, but we don't have precise wording in mind yet.

  So, GPL 3 may change that.
  
  
• Selling a service
  2004-06-09 04:51:56 daniel
  
  

  Tim O'Reilly spoke about this recently in his keynote at BEA's eWorld " It is not as much about licensing and IP rights as many people think because you are not distributing software. It is shortsighted to think that all that matters is what is running on your own machine. These network applications do not distribute software. In fact, the real value is not just in their software but in their data."

  Disclaimer - I'm pointing to coverage that I wrote as a freelancer for BEA covering words spoken by my employer.

• Selling a service
  2004-06-08 10:26:19 johnm
  
  

  Indeed, the distinction is between the use vs. the distribution of the source code. In GPL v3, the trick will be to add in an additional distinction between the public and private use so as to close that loophole (given the FSF's stated goals for "free" software).

• Selling a service
  2004-06-09 00:41:56 joecole
  
  Does this mean that for example, a web service using GPL code on the server side could be called from a client? Because the client isnt actually distributing the code, it shouldnt be in violation? So as long as the server code is not distributed it should be fine?
  
  There are tons of GPL products I can think of which would be annoyed if this was possible. Quite a few are VERY expensive for commercial use.
• Selling a service
  2004-06-15 09:33:41 mdi
  
  Absolutely. You could take a GPL server-side application (Apache) and make extensive modifications and never release them, but still have users accessing the server. You could take a GPL PHP CMS (MOUSE), modify it, and use it to manage your subscription only website, without distributing your changes. Access != distribution under GPL 2.
• Selling a service
  2004-06-09 00:27:48 jwenting
  
  yes, just change the GPL to read something like "any product that uses or incorporates any product released under the GPL in any way must itself also be released under the GPL".
  
  That should effective make using GPL software in any commercial product impossible, which seems to be the goal of the GPL (and by proxy the destruction of commercial software because the GPL zealots will of course hold that everyone would use only GPL products if only they knew about the religious freedom and bliss they provide).
• Understanding the GPL
  2004-06-09 04:18:43 philwebster
  
  "That should effective make using GPL software in any commercial product impossible, which seems to be the goal of the GPL "
  False. Read the following FSF documents to understand why:
  
  http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/selling.html
  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#commercialSoftware
  
  
  'Commercial software' != 'Proprietary software': TRUE
  'Free (Libre) Software' != 'Proprietary software': TRUE
  'Free (Libre) Software' != 'Commercial software: FALSE
  
  A!=C ^ B!=C /=> A!=B
  
  -- Fallacy of Undistributed Middle