Hi Linus and Tom
On 11/2/07, Linus Tolke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hello Roy!
>
> The question for you, Roy, is how well would the Eclipse Public License
> for ArgoUML protect your interests. Would that be a good enough?
>
In principle, it would be good enough. However, I think there are serious
practical problems with the EPL for a project like ArgoUML.
As I said before, I am not a FSF zealot. I agree with Tom, that this is an
important decision, but I will explain what I see as the advantages below.
If I understand correctly, what could happen with the Eclipse Public License
> is that Some Big Company could use ArgoUML as a platform for some other
> tool, providing the additions to the core ArgoUML back to the ArgoUML
> project while keeping their addition, containing their business edge for
> themselves. If this is what you want to prevent with the GPL license then I
> am not sure I agree. I would still like to give companies the opportunity to
> build extensions that they keep to themselves.
>
In principle, I have no problem with commercial companies making
"extensions" that are proprietary and having bug fixes flow back to the
community, The problem with the EPL is a matter of enforcement, The EPL
was created by IBM to allow it to make proprietary extensions while keeping
the growing Eclipse open source community content. It appears to have been
very successful for the Eclipse project.
If someone violates the EPL with software that IBM is depending on, who is
going to come after them? IBM of course.
If ArgoUML switches to the EPL and someone violates it, will IBM do
anything. I highly doubt it.
For all the good intentions of the Software Freedom Law Center, the
organization behind the Software Conservancy, I doubt even they will put
much energy in enforcing the EPL for ArgoUML. There is only one license
that the Software Freedom Law Center is interested in protecting, regardless
of the project. That is the GPL and its variants, and they have done a very
good job of doing that, IMHO.
Linus, I think there is a better way to both protect ArgoUML with the full
force of the Software Freedom Law center behind you and allow companies to
make extensions to ArgoUML. Dual licensing. Make the default license GPL,
but create a mechanism to offer a different license if a company requests
it. There are several successful examples of this. MySQL is the first that
come to mind.
ArgoUML could switch to the GPL v2 now, and announce that it will consider
requests for a different license. This would allow any serious large
companies to approach ArgoUML to do extensions.
Frankly, my concern is that there are unscrupulous small-to-medium size
companies that have and will copy and modify open source code without any
attribution and/or any investment back to the projects they took the code..
Without mentioning names, I have heard specific allegations from informed
sources about a "medium" sized company in the UML tools market has done that
on a consistent basis. This is the type of company that concerns me.
If ArgoUML should attract serious interest from a large software company,
they will just offer fat salaries to some or all of the key developers of
ArgoUML. I would be very happy to see that happen, both from a personal
basis and as a businessman. An investment by a large software company in
ArgoUML can only help small companies like mine that are working with
ArgoUML. I should also note there have been several GPL software projects
that have been effectively "acquired", so the GPL wouldn't be barrier that
kind of acquisition..
In summary, I see a lot of practical advantages of switching to the GPL. It
will give ArgoUML real protection, because you will have the full force of
the Eben Moglen and the Software Freedom Law Center. Should a situation
arise, you can offer the EPL or a similar license to a specific company.
If it is a large company, you can negotiate for something in return. ;-)
IMHO, any alternative to the GPL will not give ArgoUML any practical
protection for the reasons I stated above.
cheers,
roy
/Linus
>
> 2007/11/1, Tom Morris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >
> > I've been pushing for the Eclipse Public License because it seems to
> > me to be a good balance between protecting commercial entities
> > interested in doing extensions while at the same time building the
> > core value of the commons by requiring bug fixes and modifications to
> > the core to be contributed back to the community.
> >
> > Are there reasons that you think GPL is better than EPL?
> >
> > Because the GPL and EPL are incompatible, it's important for us to
> > make the right choice up front. Choosing EPL means that we have to
> > forgo the use of any useful GPL code, but we've done without it so
> > far, so this doesn't seem to be a big issue.
> >
> > Tom
> >
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>
