[MonoDevelop] Licensing concerns.

Urs C Muff umuff@quark.com
Thu, 15 Jul 2004 07:25:35 -0600


On Jul 15, 2004, at 5:45 AM, Christoph Wille wrote:

> We chose the GPL on purpose so no-one can integrate our code in a 
> non-GPL application without our explicit permission. And as Miguel has 
> already touched upon this issue, we (#develop) intend to sell 
> differently licensed components. We can do so, because we have 
> copyright assignments of all our contributors (OOo and StarOffice 
> being a prime example of this approach).

That is obvious, when it comes to YOUR code, and YOUR distribution of 
#develop, but absolutely non-obvious for so called derivative work.  
Are you implying that you want to sell MonoDevelop as well to YOUR 
profit, that would be outrageous!

>
> How do you think would MySQL AB react if you asked them to relicense 
> some of their older releases to MIT?

Nobody is asking YOU to relicense ANYTHING, they are just relicensing 
THEIR OWN GOODS, is that so difficult to understand?  YOU did not write 
the code that John and Todd wrote, so it does not belong to 
YOU/#develop, it's as simple as that.  They may have to provide their 
code in a GPL'ed version but that does not make it YOUR code!

- Urs

>
> Chris
>
> At 01:26 PM 7/15/2004, Martin Probst wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I'm only following this thread as a MonoDevelop user and I don't 
>> really
>> understand the issue.
>>
>> > We never said that our point of view is of "fundamental ethical"
>> > proportions - it is strictly focused on legality.
>>
>> If the problem is only a legal problem, why don't you just go ahead 
>> and
>> create another exception of the GPL for MonoDevelop? As far as I
>> understand you can relicense your code if you wish to. And if 
>> MonoDevelops
>> contributions are MIT X11 you can integrate their good work so both 
>> sides
>> take revenue from each other. OpenSource software style.
>>
>> I don't see any legal issues keeping you from doing that, or am I
>> missunderstanding things?
>>
>> mfg
>> Martin
>
>
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