Skip The moral obligation that you speak of brings up two additional problems with HPL/GPL. One, the moral obligation becomes a legal obligation, and two, it's not that you give _something back, but that you're obligated to give _everything back (not specifically to that project, but to the open source community at large). That seems like a dangerous position to take when talking specifically of software that drives businesses.
As far as how you offer your contributions, feel free to do so any way you wish. However, consider what your intention is in your contribution. The manner you suggest benefits very few, and more specifically may not be beneficial to the OFBiz community, for which you are saying that you specifically are not wanting to be a parasite to. If your intention is to benefit the OFBiz community, to cover as many bases as possible, consider at a minimum to offer your contribution to JIRA, even if it's not likely to be added into the project itself. In my opinion, offering it to JIRA, you're being clear that it is your work and that you are offering it under the Apache license (others may certainly disagree with that opinion). ----- Original Message ---- From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 12:57:37 PM Subject: RE: We're Hiring! Chris Nicely put. I had not considered the competitive advantage thing and you are absolutely right. The project I am working on now will have a unique website that I hope will give my customer that advantage you speak of and giving away the source would not be reasonable even for money. As far as parasites, a person who contributes back to the project is not one in my view. That's what gives open source the gas to move ahead. By saying that this modification or that addition to an existing project is my work and I deserve some recompense for it ignores value of the work that someone else did. I am not saying that you have to give everything you do back to the community. What I am saying is, if you use opensource software, you have a moral obligation to contribute SOMETHING back. Then you cease to be a parasite and become part of the organism. As far as Open Source Strategies goes, I fully understand their need to have their own project. There is this ofbiz groupware bureaucracy (is that spelled right?) to get anything done and it is time consuming. For me, I fully expect to offer my contributions on a private website on a take it or leave it basis so I don't have to deal with it. Skip -----Original Message----- From: Chris Howe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 9:48 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: We're Hiring! This is only my view. I certainly support anyone's right to release their work under whatever license they deem most beneficial to themselves and Open Source Strategies has been very generous in giving back to the OFBiz community, this is not a knock on them, simply the license. In regards to HPL and GPL, without getting into the specifics of each, most projects are kind of hypocritical with their stance on parasites. Almost without exception HPL and GPL licensed projects are born out of a project with a BSD/MIT/Apache license. By releasing their modifications to those projects under GPL or HPL, they're saying "we reserve the right to be parasites to those projects, but won't allow others to be parasites to ours". As I understand it, while there is not a "no commercial use clause" in the HPL, the effect is of one. If you're running a website and the website's code is HPL, then you're under obligation to release the source of your website, even your modifications. If that is the case, your website is severely limited in its ability to be a competitive advantage. No competitive advantage, might as well be no commercial use. ----- Original Message ---- From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 11:12:58 AM Subject: RE: We're Hiring! David This is the second refence to the HPL in the last few days where you have expressed your unhappiness with it. I have read it through several times and can find nothing onerous in it (unlike the no commercial use clauses in some). While I find the Apache license ideal, I myself get rather aggrevated when people use this Apache Licensed software for their commercial enterprises and never contribute anything back. I consider them to be parasites. Anyway, can you describe specifically what you are not comfortable with in case I have missed some lawyer stuff? Skip
