hei core devs for me it does not matter, as long as it sounds like open source! thanks for all your work! Andreas
Am Montag, 28. November 2011, 20.27:02 schrieb Thomas Bruederli: > Hi folks, > > Some time ago we already had a discussion about possible license > changes. See > http://lists.roundcube.net/mail-archive/dev/2010-01/0000022.html to refresh > your memory. > > Now, almost two years later we came to the conclusion that it's time to act. > But let me describe our thoughts a bit more: > > Current Situation > ================= > > Roundcube has inherited and built upon code from a variety of > projects, allowing it to grow quickly to the solution we all love > today. In doing so, it has effectively also inherited its licensing > policy from projects which were not handling these issues as carefully > as one might have wished. > > These projects have often done a "licensed under the GNU General > Public License (GPL)" without an explicit version. Sometimes this > statement was accompanied with a link to a web page, most importantly > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl. This link was pointing at version 2 > of the GPL, but it is the link that always leads to the latest > version, so right now is pointing to GPL version 3. And so did > Roundcube itself. > > This, and the provisions in GPLv2 which say that you may at your > option choose a later version if there is no explicit version > mentioned means that right now Roundcube is "GPL v2 or v3, either may > be binding for you depending on how you got it" and would *not* allow > proprietary extensions and modules and may or may not allow > proprietary skins, depending on your interpretation. > > This is clearly not a perfect situation and it doesn't reflect the > consensus within the Roundcube community (especially after the last > licensing discussion) that proprietary modules (plugins) should be > allowed, as should be proprietary skins. We meanwhile have specified > Version 2 in our source but some links still point to the above > mentioned URL which now shows Version 3 of the GPL. > > So it would make a lot of sense to clarify this explicitly. > > At the same time, the possibility of Roundcube being under GPLv2 > blocks some innovation we would like to do for future versions, such > as for example inline ODF support through WebODF, which is licensed > under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) Version 3. > > Background information for the interested > ========================================= > > * GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 2: > https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html > > * GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 3: > https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html > > * A Quick Guide to GPLv3: > https://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html > > * GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) Version 3: > https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html > > * Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses: > https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html > > > Proposed license clarification > ============================== > > Because of the incorporated numerous other components, the only > options for licenses > are in the GNU GPL family, namely GNU GPLv2, GNU GPLv3, GNU AGPLv3. > > In order to become license compatible with some of the technologies we > would like to be able to use in order to improve Roundcube, we should > at the very least choose GNU GPL version 3. > > We could also choose GNU AGPLv3, which would provide more rights to > the users of Roundcube. It would mean that all users have the right to > obtain the code of the instance that is providing their service (minus > the additional modules, of course). > > It would also ensure that modifications on the basic Roundcube > codebase will have to be made available as soon as the are being used > to provide services over the internet, not just when they are > distributed in other ways. > > This is the first choice we have. > > Personally I'm okay with either, but as the recent discussion showed > us, there are some arguments against the AGPL option. I would, > however, in any case suggest we explicitly leave the "or any later > version" default in, so future license updates won't require us to > look at this again. > > Secondly, if we want to allow proprietary modules and skins, which has > turned out to be a major concern of our "users", we should add the > explicit permission to create modules under any license, including a > proprietary one, which can be done through the following exception to > GPLv3 or AGPLv3: > > This file forms part of the Roundcube Platform for which the > following exception is added: Plug-ins and Skins which merely > make function calls to the Roundcube Platform, and for that > purpose include it by reference shall not be considered > modifications of the Platform. > > If you wish to use this file in another project or create a > modified version that will not be part of the Roundcube Platform, > you may remove the exception above and use this source code under > the original version of the license. > > The first paragraph provides the permission. > > The second paragraph allows re-use of Roundcube's code in other > projects without the additional permission. Otherwise it would be too > easy to circumvent the license and re-use may be limited by the > licenses of the projects that wish to re-use code. > > The Way forward > =============== > > Because the Copyright in Roundcube is not consolidated, making these > updates requires the agreement of all contributors to Roundcube. > > So if you have in the past contributed to Roundcube, we would very > much like to ask you for your explicit agreement with this path > forward and your preference with regards AGPLv3 / GPLv3, and whether > you would exclude one or the other, and for which reasons. > > We believe this primarily represents a clarification and an adjustment > to what we practiced over the past years, and we hope that you will > also see it that way. > > But of course we cannot force anyone to agree, so for those who prefer > to have their code removed from Roundcube rather than agree to the > update, please let us know. > > Timing > ====== > > This will not affect the 0.7 release, which will still take place > under the somewhat fuzzy licensing situation, but we'll want to apply > this to HEAD so we can make sure all code is properly updated and > conflicting code replaced before the 0.8 release. > > > Please let us know, what you think about this proposal. > > Best regards, > Thomas > _______________________________________________ > List info: http://lists.roundcube.net/dev/ > BT/f0a00374 _______________________________________________ List info: http://lists.roundcube.net/dev/ BT/8f4f07cd
