NOTE:
I'm currently experiencing problems sending mail. I have contacted Tech
Support and hopefully this will soon be resolved, but until then I might reply
a bit less often to messages as I have to use a web interface. Now, on to
the message:
Hi,
here's my draft for our license. It's based on the GPL 2, but I've made
changes which hopefully summarize to the following:
- The preamble has been shortened to one more appropriate for a UFP
license.
- This allows commercial use and only requires shipping along the
original source, not the modified source
- If original source isn't shipped along, it has to be made available at
*no charge*
- derivatives of this don't have to be distributed under this license
- The authors' names and the product name may not be used to endorse
derivative works
- When the license is revised, programs that do not explicitly specify a
revision number of this license will automatically fall under the most
recent revision
- I have added paragraph 11 which addresses commercial distribution of
stacks and how to ship along the program then
- The new paragraph 12 concerns itself with external media as discussed
on the list
- Also new is �13 that mentions "plug-in" commands (NOT xcmds, this
refers to e.g. functions added to the Interpreter using the APIs)
Since I'm not a lawyer, it would be good if someone who has some knowledge
of US law (as this license is written in English, I guess this will be our
place of court, won't it?) examined this license again and pointed aout any
pitfalls, especially in �� 11, 12 and 13. I'm especially unsure whether �11
protects our file format. Could this be interpreted as "the file format
becomes your intellectual property", which I don't mean, or does the use of
"reamain" make it clear to a lawyer that what wasn't the licensee's original
property won't change its status?
I'm also not sure whether �11 conflicts with parts of �3 and we should
make clearer what we mean.
Cheers,
-- Uli
UFP: PROJECT OPENCARD GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE (UFP OC GPL)
Version 1 (Draft 1; Author: M. Uli Kusterer)
The intention of this license is providing a means to distribute software
in a way that allows enhancing it gradually through collaboration, thus
providing high-quality software at no cost.
On the same note, this License aims to give people using this software and
those adding to it to keep using it, and to make profit from anything they
create with the aid of this software.
The software may also be called "the program" in further passages, while
"You" refers to the licensee, and "this license" is the UFP OC GPL.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
b) You must cause any modified files to retain their original
copyright notices, including the names of its authors, but you may not use this
information to endorse your derived work of the Program in any way, qithout
their prior explicit permission. Also, you may not use the name of the program
as the name of the modified program.
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
collective works based on the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
the scope of this License.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1, 2 and 11 of this license provided that you also do one of the
following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code of the original, unmodified program, which must be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used
for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, at no further charge, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
special exception, the source code distributed need not include
anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
itself accompanies the executable.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
parties remain in full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
the Program or works based on it.
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
this License.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
circumstances.
It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
impose that choice.
This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
be a consequence of the rest of this License.
8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
9. The UFP may publish revised and/or new versions
of this License from time to time. Such new versions will
be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the UFP. If
the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you must choose the most recent version of this license.
10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the UFP,
write to the UFP; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be
guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of
our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software
generally.
11. Any work your create using this program remains your intellectual
property, and you may do with it as you please, including selling it. Also,
you may ship a compiled binary form of the program along with your work to
allow using it as long as you make clear that the program is not part of your
work and where the program can be obtained for free, including source code.
Also, you may not use the program's name to endorse your project or charge
additionally for the program; this does not prohibit you from adding a note
that states the program was the tool you created your work with, if you make
clear that your work is completely your responsibility.
Because the program is not your property, you have to make the users of
your work aware of the fact that they are allowed to freely copy the program
and give it away to others at no charge.
12. External media that ship with this program, such as graphics,
sounds, movies, clip art may be used freely in works created using this program
and in all modified versions of this program that fall under this license,
inclusing documentation for this program, for modified versions that fall under
this license and/or for work created using this program, as well as in
screen shots in reviews of this program. They may not be used, however, in works
based on works created with this program, or proprietary software, except
if you obtained explicit permission from the creator of the specific media
before.
13. Source code and binaries that have been "plugged-in" into the
program using included extension APIs (like functions, commands, properties,
object types etc.) do not fall under this license as long as they do not require
changes in or interact with other parts of the program except through the
extension APIs provided.
NO WARRANTY
14. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
15. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN
WRITING
WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
ARISING
OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
--
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