[MonoDevelop] Licensing concerns.

[Bernhard Spuida]

Hi,

On 14 Jul 2004 at 13:27, John Luke wrote:

> > 2) If you plan to reuse code from other projects, fork a project 
or
> > depend on previous work, familiarize yourself with the implications
> > of the licenses and legal issues involved. Just skimming the preamble
> > of a legal text is not enough.
> 
> Um, thanks for insulting me.

If you take it this way, please your self. As for me, in my position 
as #develop senior word wrangler, I receive quite a number of emails 
regarding misunderstandings etc. of license. It seems that in these 
days of clickthrough agreements most people simply do not read 
anything looking like legalese. Did you actually ever *really* read 
the EULA for say, Acrobat Reader? Honestly?
 
> > 
> > 3) For your project, set up a proper process for assignment and
> > attribution of copyrights. Painful as this may look at first sight,
> > it will save a lot of trouble later on. Recent legal developments
> > have proven this. And we may assume this to get more of an issue in
> > the future.
> > 
> > I am also less than happy about the turn things took, but time cannot
> > be turned back and decisions cannot be unmade.
> > Regards,
> > 
> >                      Bernhard Spuida
> >                      #develop senior word wrangler
> > 
> 
> In case their is some confusion:
>  - I am ok with SharpDevelop's position with AddIns, I just think
>    it is the wrong choice.  I have no problem licensing everything
>    I wrote to do with MD under those terms.  I only think that
>    independent 3rd party AddIns that are not part of the Core/Base
>    be allowed to be licensed on their own terms.  (Think NVidia drivers)
>  - I am not asking them to change their license, or position on AddIns.
>    That is for them and others to decide based on what their goals and
>    business plan is.
>  - This is only one of many reasons I decided to stop work on MonoDevelop.
>  - I have as much familiarity of all aspects of the GPL as anyone else does
>    that is not a lawyer.  I have looked into it carefully in the past, long
>    before I was around here.  It is an acceptable license in my opinion, just
>    unclear on a few points that will hopefully be addressed in the next
>    revision (if there is one).
>  - Last, this does not have to be a sad situation.  There are very large open
>    source projects that have a similar licensing situation and are widely
>    successful.  MonoDevelop and SharpDevelop can be the next, and I hope
>    they will.

Your position is appreciated.
Regards,

             Bernhard Spuida
             #develop senior word wrangler



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