Hi YKY, On 1/28/07, YKY (Yan King Yin) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Thanks, but I favor a license that supports some commercial rights, or I'll need to create one. Google Code only supports free / copyleft licenses.
Licensing is typically more intricate than it first appears. KB content and software source code would likely be under separate licenses, and contributed and maintained by mostly separate communities. It's feasible to maintain two source code bases, one which is open source and a second which is closed source. As copyright holder, you're permitted to intermingle code between the two (with some restrictions), and reserve any proprietary code you like in the closed-source version. However, once source code is contributed to an open source version, it's in the wild forever (i.e. an open source license can't be retroactively revoked). You might also consider making an upfront statement to the effect that open source coders may be hired in the future if they're willing to assign their source code copyright to your company, allowing you to more easily make proprietary derivative works of their open source code. Depending on the license chosen, others may also be allowed to make proprietary derivative works of the open source code. For example, while it seems counter-intuitive, dual-licensed GPL projects have stronger commercial protection for the copyright holder than do BSD licensed projects, which allow third parties to keep their changes proprietary. For the KB, non-commercial creative commons licenses exist which may be useful. It's my guess that a KB of this size and nature would be hosted outside of a normal source-code-hosting setting, simply because those services don't offer the necessary tools for the job. Most Linux hosting services would be sufficient for KB hosting, as they include database software and large amounts of storage. You'd want to read the fine print of the source-code-hosting services' licenses, but it's probably okay to combine all of these various license types in the way described, however IANAL so better yet seek legal advice. Nearly any AGI project with a commercial/community mix will have similar licensing issues. David ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
