Re: [Autonomo.us] AGPL licensing questions

[David Roetzel]

Hi,

thanks for all the good input so far. I have in fact contacted the
author of the original templates and asked for a different licensing.

  I don't know why the code and media (or everything but the media, ie
  images in this case), couldn't be licensed separately, under AGPL and
  CC BY respectively.
 
 It can be generally, but we've found in some of these cases with
 web templating engines that there are often not bright lines between the
 two.


that is my understanding, too. I think modern web applications are very
special in this regard, as they consist of server-side as well as
client-side code, HTML, CSS and images. And it really is the sum of all
those components that make up the application.
 
  Well, /if/ CC BY is not AGPL-incompatible, then you could just use
 
 I did in fact assume that CC-BY-SA was in use and I also assumed it's
 AGPLv3-incompatible.  It's indeed possible that a simple CC-By is
 AGPLv3-compatible, but a careful analysis would be needed.

It is indeed CC-By, which is also seen by many people who are far
smarter than I am as incompatible with (A)GPL.

Kind regards

David
___
Discuss mailing list
Discuss@lists.autonomo.us
http://lists.autonomo.us/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Autonomo.us] AGPL licensing questions

[David Roetzel]

Hi everyone,

I am not sure if this is the right place to pose these questions, but I
know there are probably many subscribed who have been doing similar
things, so there might be some experience here. If not, I would be
grateful if you could point me to any better place to ask this. Thanks.

I am currently writing a web application that I would love to release
under the AGPLV3. Applying FSF licenses to web applications always
gives me a terrible headache. In my current situation the main problem
is the combination of so many elements licensed under different terms.

This is what I am putting together:

1. My app is based on Ruby on Rails (MIT License), Rails Plugins
(mostly MIT), KDE Icons (LGPL) and the jquery Javascript Library (MIT
or GPL dual licensed).

This is uncritical as I understand, since even if I create a combined
work (which I am never sure of with web stuff) MIT is GPL-compatible.

2. I use an image from flickr under Creative Commons Attribution
license.

Is this critical? I have no problem with giving attribution, but I
wonder if using this in my app somehow makes this a combined work or
something.

3. I based the web design (html, css and some images) on a free
template under Creative Commons Attribution license.

This is where it gets messy. Again I have no problem with giving
attribution, but the original template code is now splattered all over
my application, since I use small parts of it in many of my
Rails-templates. It is so intertwined with my code now, that it can
hardly be seen as seperate.

I thought about licensing the Rails-template files differently than the
rest of the application, but that is overly complicated and at the end
of the day does not make much sense, since the whole of the backend
code, the templates, the javacript etc. is the application. No part can
stand for itself.

So how do I go about doing this correctly?

Is AGPL'ing this application possible at all?

Bonus question 1: With so many components licensed differently, where
would be a good place to mention all this and give credit to all the
original authors/creators? A COPYING file? Maybe as a preamble to the
LICENSE file? Or put it somewhere in the README?

Bonus question 2: Is there a comprehensive how-to or faq of how to
apply FSF licenses to web applications?

I am serious. This is making me physically ill. Even though the wording
in the V3 (A)GPL texts has changed, I cannot help but think it was
written with C code in mind.

Meanwhile this has strange effects in the web world. Like people (re-)
licensing their free javascript libraries under GPL in order to coerce
their users into buying commercial licenses.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Kind regards,

David
___
Discuss mailing list
Discuss@lists.autonomo.us
http://lists.autonomo.us/mailman/listinfo/discuss