Google is providing tremendous free resources to the open source community; by coming into our house, it's not unreasonable for us to set certain conditions. From our wiki pages:
"[...] we think that license proliferation is bad for the open source community, so we only allow a subset of licenses to be used on Google Code as a way of discouraging license proliferation. License proliferation means the creation and use of new OSS licenses that have no reason for existing. There are over 200 open source approved licenses, most of which are variants of existing licenses that do not add much value. This state of affairs makes compliance with open source licenses a nightmare because you can no longer simply rely on having a small number of licenses if you use open source libraries (in either an open source or a commercial product), but instead have to deal with mixing code from as many licenses as you use libraries. This is not just bad from a legal perspective, but it is a huge turnoff for people wanting to use and create open source. The licenses we have chosen cover the needs of 99% of our users, and our stand on license proliferation has actually helped to create a dialog about what licenses people should be using, and given us a chance to educate people about good license choice." We believe that by restricting license choice, we're helping the open source for the long term, at the cost of angering a few people here and there in the short term. It's easy to mistake the noisy minority for a general uprising, but what you're not hearing is the other 98% of users who *do* choose a standard licence. Nobody is forcing you to come into our house. On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 2:03 PM, Keanen <[email protected]> wrote: > It's your comment that doesn't make sense, Chris. Google only hosts > programs licensed under a few licenses, meaning that Google forces > projects to be licensed under those licenses. Other sites like > Sourceforge just aren't a viable option. Your mission statement even > admits to this, with the phrase "standards that promotes best > practices in open source software engineering." You clearly don't > support free choice, as there are numerous requests for commercial and > public domain licensing, and yet you only allow a few open source > licenses. Half your licenses are GPLs, which don't even support > commercial development! There's nowhere else for us to go, so we are > forced to operate under Google's stringent licensing requirements. I > believe we should have a right to write our own licenses, or at least > have "public domain" as an option. > > -Keanen > > On Aug 22, 9:37 am, Chris DiBona <[email protected]> wrote: >> Right now, we only host those programs licensed under the licenses listed on >> the site. There are other sites that host pd programs. If indeed google came >> to your house, forced you to use another license, then maybe your comment >> would make sense. >> >> Chris >> >> >> >> On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 10:13 AM, Keanen <[email protected]> wrote: >> > I know how public domain works, I recognize that a lot of countries >> > don't support it, and I absolutely hold all rights to my software. The >> > problem with permissive licensing is that the license must be >> > distributed along with the software, which, unless it is only one line >> > of text, provides too many legal complications. I am confident with >> > crediting myself as the original creator and providing a disclaimer. I >> > don't believe in restricting other people's rights. >> >> > If someone were to, hypothetically, place their project in the public >> > domain when they didn't hold all of the rights to it, Google would not >> > have to assume liability. It would be that person's fault. I wouldn't >> > call it "facilitation" to license anything under the public domain >> > blanket, it would just be a lack of restriction thereof. As I'm sure, >> > Google is all for freedom of information, or am I wrong? >> >> > -Keanen >> >> > On Aug 22, 6:21 am, Augie Fackler <[email protected]> wrote: >> > > Fromhttp://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/FAQ#Hosted_Tools: >> > > """ >> > > The concept of "public domain" is actually a lot more complicated than >> > > most people realize. Holding copyright and using a (permissive) >> > > licence is almost always the right choice. In general, we do not offer >> > > to host projects with source code in the public domain. However, if >> > > you can only release your code as public domain, and you are sure that >> > > you can legally do so, please enter an issue for us to review your >> > > request and create the project for you. >> > > """ >> >> > > If you look around in OSI licensing discussion archives, they strongly >> > > discourage use of public domain in lieu of a real license, with some >> > > legal justification. >> >> > > On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 1:15 AM, Keanen <[email protected]> wrote: >> > > > I brought it up as an issue in support, but it was marked as "invalid" >> > > > because I was told that it was on a case-by-case basis. >> >> > > > Now, I have a serious problem with that. The public domain is a great >> > > > licensing solution, and it shouldn't require any kind of approval. >> > > > Especially from Google, one of the largest software developers in the >> > > > world. >> >> > > > So, at the very least, I am requesting public domain for my old >> > > > AltAuto project (altauto.googlecode.com), but really, I would like to >> > > > make a difference in the Google Code licensing system. I think public >> > > > domain is a viable option. >> >> > > > -- >> > > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> > Groups "Project Hosting on Google Code" group. >> > > > To post to this group, send email to >> > [email protected]. >> > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> > [email protected]<google-code-hosting%[email protected]> >> > . >> > > > For more options, visit this group athttp:// >> > groups.google.com/group/google-code-hosting?hl=en. >> >> > -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> > "Project Hosting on Google Code" group. >> > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> > [email protected]<google-code-hosting%[email protected]> >> > . >> > For more options, visit this group at >> >http://groups.google.com/group/google-code-hosting?hl=en. >> >> -- >> Open Source Programs Manager, Google Inc. >> Google's Open Source and Developer programs can be found >> athttp://code.google.com >> Personal Site and Weblog:http://dibona.com > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Project Hosting on Google Code" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/google-code-hosting?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Project Hosting on Google Code" group. 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