I hope this is more along the lines of advice and guidance. This is my take
on the licensing issues involved. I don't wish to intentionally provide any
opinions about the "goodness" or "badness" of the licenses involved, just my
understanding of how the issues apply in this case. I am not a lawyer just a
developer who has read many license agreements; so I am interested to hear
what others may say about this issue.
I haven�t looked at the Appserver source code yet to see what you have
redistributed (and as you will see later in my discussion even if I did look
at your source code, only you may know what can be redistributed); however,
I did take a look at the Cassini stuff as well as some other "free"
Microsoft software a couple of weeks ago when I last looked at your app
server (basically because you referenced it in your site).
I downloaded and installed the Cassini server; the EULA which is used to
"click-wrap" the software (i.e. you can't install it until you agree to it)
is attached. Read it carefully; especially section 2.2; I like to refer to
this as the Microsoft Anti-Open-Source License agreement. Basically you can
use their code for your own purposes, and can even re-distribute it inside
your own product (even sell your product) as long as you don't redistribute
your product as open source software (they don't say it directly, but that
is my interpretation of their legalese--read the last part of paragraph
2.2).
If your intention is to use the Cassini server temporarily to create other
functionality and then later plug in some other open source product (mono or
something else) to take the place of the Cassini server then your code can
remain open sourced; as long as your code does not directly include any of
the Cassini code; however you are not able to redistribute any components of
the Cassini server (you could however provide a link to the Cassini server
for those who wish to try your functionality).
You have to be very careful to keep from infringing on Microsoft's property;
most open source projects are very good about identifying each source file
as being covered by the appropriate open source license; Microsoft just
includes the clause:
/*=======================================================================
� Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.� All rights reserved.
�
THIS CODE AND INFORMATION ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
=======================================================================*/
However the click wrap agreement that you agreed to when you first installed
the software is truly the defining agreement.
It would appear that microsoft uses a similar license agreement on all of
its "ASP.Net Source Projects" on www.asp.net; so anyone looking to use these
projects (http://www.asp.net/Default.aspx?tabindex=7&tabid=41) should be
aware of the restrictions.
Regards,
Steven Balthazor
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