Mark Dixon <[email protected]> writes: > I've got approval to send this upstream under an open source license, but > I'm now wondering how to go about it in terms of which license and any > notices that need to go with it or into each file. I'm a tech, not a > lawyer, so obviously I'm imagining this is more complicated than it > actually is ;)
Probably, but I've had to learn too much about it as a maintainer... Anything here isn't legal advice, of course, but follows legal advice as I understand it, particularly via the FSF. Maybe this is more appropriate for the -dev list, but it may be of interest to people here who I hope will consider contributing too. > Does anyone have advice on how to do this? This'll be the first time I've > submitted code. > > I guess the main points that are important to me are: > > * It will remain copyright of University of Leeds. > * I'd like it to make it into the source repository if possible, so that > people can find it. That isn't currently possible as I understand it. Univa will be requiring legal papers for submissions, similar to the old Sun ones, but as far as I know details are still up in the air. I assume it won't involve assigning copyright; I don't see how that would benefit Univa, given that they don't own copyright on most of it, but Univa will have to provide an official story. I can give contributions an accessible home in the meantime, if that's useful. > * I Want the license to be compatible with the rest of the stuff in the > source repository. A lot of people say SISSL is a bit odd. Is there > another license in common use in the source tree? There's no problem with licence incompatibility for separate programs. If stuff is linked with the core GE libraries, then it basically has to be under the SISSL, although you can use, say, a BSD-ish or LGPL licence which is compatible with SISSL. There's already GPL stuff in the distribution (qmake, at least). I assume Univa won't care greatly as long as it's free software, which means they can distribute it commercially. I would put i under the GPL3, unless you want to allow it to be made proprietary, in which case choose a permissive licence from http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#SoftwareLicenses. Add a suitable notice to the top of each file following the `How to apply' instructions at the end of the GPL. For contributing library code that you want to remain free, the LGPL is probably a good choice. The best choice for new documentation might need some discussion. If used the straight GFDL for new man pages so far, but could be persuaded to use something else. _______________________________________________ users mailing list [email protected] https://gridengine.org/mailman/listinfo/users
