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Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]
Another one for the list.
----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> -----
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 09:31:52 -0700 To: ilug@linux.ie From: Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> Subject: Re: [ILUG] Solution needed for terminale server licensing problem.Quoting Michael Armbrecht (michael.armbrecht@gmail.com):
> There are alternatives to MS Project, most of them done in Java. > This one (http://sourceforge.net/projects/openproj/) looks very > MS-Projectish. It's Open Source....
Sadly, no, it's not. Quoting my summary at "Project Management" on http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Apps/:
Licence is deceptively claimed to be open source, but in fact is MPL 1.1 plus a proprietary "badgeware" addendum that impairs third-party commercial usage by requiring that derivative works include mandatory advertising of OpenProj publisher Projity's name and trademarked logo on "each user interface screen" while specifically denying users a trademark licence.
-- Cheers, Rick Moen Age, baro, fac ut gaudeam. rick@linuxmafia.com -- Irish Linux Users' Group mailing list About this list : http://mail.linux.ie/mailman/listinfo/ilug Who we are : http://www.linux.ie/ Where we are : http://www.linux.ie/map/
Suramya Tomar [security at suramya.com]
Rick,
> Another one for the list.<snip>
>> There are alternatives to MS Project, most of them done in Java. >> This one (http://sourceforge.net/projects/openproj/) looks very >> MS-Projectish. It's Open Source.... > > Sadly, no, it's not. Quoting my summary at "Project Management" on > http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Apps/: > > Licence is deceptively claimed to be open source, but in fact is MPL > 1.1 plus a proprietary "badgeware" addendum that impairs third-party > commercial usage by requiring that derivative works include mandatory > advertising of OpenProj publisher Projity's name and trademarked logo on > "each user interface screen" while specifically denying users a > trademark licence. >
I just installed OpenProj on my system and Its using "Common Public Attribution License Version 1.0 (CPAL)" (Atleast in the Beta 2.1 version)
And CPAL is a valid OpenSource license: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cpal_1.0 . I guess they must have changed licenses recently. Thought I should bring it to your attention.
Thanks, Suramya
--************************************************************Name : Suramya Tomar Homepage URL: http://www.suramya.com
Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]
Quoting Suramya Tomar (security@suramya.com):
> I just installed OpenProj on my system and Its using "Common Public > Attribution License Version 1.0 (CPAL)" (Atleast in the Beta 2.1 version)
OK, they changed it, then!
> And CPAL is a valid OpenSource license: > http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cpal_1.0 . I guess they must have > changed licenses recently. Thought I should bring it to your attention.
Thank you, Suramya. Here's what I just posted back to the ILUG list:
---<snip>---
Correction: They have now (recently, at least for the 2.1 beta) changed to Socialtext's CPAL (Common Public Attribution License), which was recently certified as open source by OSI. CPAL is a very much toned down version of the badgeware idea, fixing the Open Source Definition- oriented objections of people on OSI's license-discuss mailing list (including yr. humble correspondent).
CPAL requires that redistributions or derivatives of covered Web / ASP / SaaS applications flash a display on the work's graphical user interface if any, for a reasonable time sufficient for the user to notice, stating a required, brief notice identifying the original developer. Commentators on license-discuss considered CPAL to encumber usage but not to any meaningful degree, such that it's a slight nuisance but doesn't substantially impair freedom of usage.
I'm about to correct my knowledgebase entry.
---<snip>---
In some ways (but not others), this provision might be compared to the original BSD licence's "advertising clause", specifically in being, in Stallman's words, an "obnoxious" clause that is likely to impair formation of a long-term commons surrounding the software, and keep the covered code in a neglected code ghetto -- but nonetheless not proprietary in any meaningful sense.
I hope to have more to say about this matter in the Gazette, soon. Basically, the whole notion of "attribution" licences for hosted applications was a badly thought-out solution to the "ASP loophole" problem in the first place. CPAL is a meticulous, thoughtfully repaired revision of that flawed original concept (for which we should give thanks to some hard and work from volunteer OSI General Counsel and (non-volunteer) Socialtext attorney Mark F. Radcliffe[1]), but there are better, entirely different approaches to the "ASP loophole" conundrum that don't impair usage.
Anyhow, if people think OSI erred in approving CPAL, then please do blame me in part. I posted one of the few comments to the CPAL proposal, as follows:
From rick Fri Jun 29 14:32:03 2007 Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:32:03 -0700 To: license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: For Approval: Common Public Attribution License (CPAL)
Quoting Matthew Flaschen (matthew.flaschen@gatech.edu):
> "Prominent" is flexible, but only to a point. The logo can be small and > briefly displayed, but not too small or brief because "the display > [must] be of sufficient duration to give reasonable notice". I.E. if a > reasonable user wouldn't be able to notice all the attributions, they > aren't prominent.
As brief meta-commentary, I do agree with the concern about logo accumulation in derivative works, and have voiced it myself, but feel that some sense of proportion should be applied, in judging the proper extent of that concern. Yes, an important aim of open source is to make code borrowing lawful and practical (to the extent that licence compatibility allows), but, realistically, Nicholas Goodman's logo-overload scenario is (even under the early badgeware licenses with fixed-size logos on every page) a severe (yet amusing) over-exaggeration of what could ever actually happen in the real world.
In the real world, derivative works from ten-plus badgeware-licensed Web apps would seem extremely unlikely: Old code does get junked or totally rewritten over time (except in chthonian COBOL underworlds, I guess), rather than remaining eternally like a fossil inclusion to bedevil engineers and company lawyers.
I'm trying to say: Let's be tolerant of licence-created problem scenarios that seem, at best, on the far end of "unlikely to actually occur".
After a suitable period for comment from the license-discuss membership, in which few comments other than mine were provided, OSI's Board voted recently to certify CPAL as OSD-compliant.
[1] ...who, it should be said, created this problem in the first place in his role as paid counsel for SugarCRM, Inc. See: http://nothing.tmtm.com/archives/2605
Suramya Tomar [security at suramya.com]
Rick,
> Another one for the list.<snip>
>> There are alternatives to MS Project, most of them done in Java. >> This one (http://sourceforge.net/projects/openproj/) looks very >> MS-Projectish. It's Open Source.... > > Sadly, no, it's not. Quoting my summary at "Project Management" on > http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Apps/: > > Licence is deceptively claimed to be open source, but in fact is MPL > 1.1 plus a proprietary "badgeware" addendum that impairs third-party > commercial usage by requiring that derivative works include mandatory > advertising of OpenProj publisher Projity's name and trademarked logo on > "each user interface screen" while specifically denying users a > trademark licence. >
I just installed OpenProj on my system and Its using "Common Public Attribution License Version 1.0 (CPAL)" (Atleast in the Beta 2.1 version)
And CPAL is a valid OpenSource license: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cpal_1.0 . I guess they must have changed licenses recently. Thought I should bring it to your attention.
Thanks, Suramya
--************************************************************Name : Suramya Tomar Homepage URL: http://www.suramya.com