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steel latest news.. pretty long... Ignore if you wish..

 [1/6] from: maximo::meteorstudios::com at: 16-Sep-2003 16:45


hi all, Is been a while, he is an update on the STEEL project status and a follow up to the licensing issue. vacation: --------- I took two COMPLETE weeks of vacation from work AND projects. Unplugged all computers during that time, to reset my sanity. ;-) Should restart working on steel during the week. fixes: ------ before my vacation, I fixed several nasty bugs in some of the released liquid-vid handlers. remark.r and colorbox demo. new site?: ------------- No ETA on the new site and downloads, but most of it IS done. The first tutorial is in writing and nears completion. As soon as it is done and I have more definitive views on the licensing, I will update the site. Won't be long, just be patient a few more days... maybe another week at the most. The licensing is what is currently holding me back. I have to settle this now, before the tools get too widespread and that I can't go back. LICENSING: ---------- gpl and osi certification is a NO GO. -- Basically, anyone who works on a OSI certified project HAS to share his code and cannot really make any commercial license usefull. Anyone in the world can copy a gpl bound project and then make profit from it, not only people who put effort in the project. I am not charging any money and I do not wish anyone else to do so with my work, and sacrifices. Moreover, you cannot relicense your stuff separately. Anything a contibuter adds is automatically gpl-bound so users could not use your stuff commercially even though they use a commercial license of steel, unless each contributor specifically grants a license to each user... this is chaos in the making. :-( So... I will build my own license the SCL - Steel Community License. ---------- I was about to to put it in this mail, then I figured it would have been too long a mail... so I'll just post the license with the rest of the new site when its ready. The license will be subject to change depending on the community's comments (if any). All comments welcome... happy to be on the list after this (short) time off. -max ------------- Steel project coordinator http://www.rebol.it/~steel ------------- PS: I'm surprised to see just how long I have been able to stay focused on this one project (steel) so far, even though I find that its moving along at a snails pace. Historically I am a creative type and get impulsive with newer exciting stuff...( like AI and MANY other non programming stuff (rally-car racing, painting, personal 3d animation projects, and soooo many other tempting things).

 [2/6] from: andrew:martin:colenso:school at: 17-Sep-2003 9:21


max wrote:
> So... I will build my own license > the SCL - Steel Community License.
<<quoted lines omitted: 6>>
> All comments welcome... happy to be on the list after this > (short) time off.
Have you considered using one of many licences at Creative Commons? (It could save a lot of time and effort.) Andrew J Martin Attendance Officer & Information Systems Trouble Shooter Colenso High School Arnold Street, Napier. Tel: 64-6-8310180 ext 826 Fax: 64-6-8336759 http://colenso.net/scripts/Wiki.r?AJM http://www.colenso.school.nz/ DISCLAIMER: Colenso High School and its Board of Trustees is not responsible (or legally liable) for materials distributed to or acquired from user e-mail accounts. You can report any misuse of an e-mail account to our ICT Manager and the complaint will be investigated. (Misuse can come in many forms, but can be viewed as any material sent/received that indicate or suggest pornography, unethical or illegal solicitation, racism, sexism, inappropriate language and/or other issues described in our Acceptable Use Policy.) All outgoing messages are certified virus-free by McAfee GroupShield Exchange 5.10.285.0 Phone: +64 6 843 5095 or Fax: +64 6 833 6759 or E-mail: [postmaster--colenso--school--nz]

 [3/6] from: andreas:bolka:gmx at: 17-Sep-2003 2:57


warning upfront: licensing discussion ahead. executive summary: - have a look at the Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike License" as that might be what you want (http://creativecommons.org/license/results-one?license_code=by-nc-sa) - double-licensing (free for non-commercial, seperate commercial license) is tricky and harder than you might think, especially when contributions of others are to be merged into the "main" code-base. before embarking on double-licensing adventures, you should have a clear idea about your intentions (i.e. "what do I want to be my rights and obligations regarding the software", "what do I want to be the righty and obligations of contributors to my software") Tuesday, September 16, 2003, 10:45:47 PM, Maxim wrote:
> Basically, anyone who works on a OSI certified project HAS to share > his code
that's simply wrong. maybe you're mixing up GPL and other OSI-certified licenses here. there are quite a lot OSI-certified licenses (e.g. the MIT or BSD licenses), that do _not_ require contributors to share their code. GPL-licensed use however, requires exactly what you state - modifications to the code most be released under GPL which also enforces the release of modified code.
> and cannot really make any commercial license usefull.
users of your software licensed under a commercial license are only bound to this commercial license. however, GPL can make dual-licensing quite hard (as I explained in an earlier mail). the practices of Mysql AB show one possible solution to GPL/commercial-license dual-licensing issues.
> anyone in the world can copy a gpl bound project and then make > profit from it,
hmm - your statement is a bit vague. there are several ways a gpl-licensed user can "make profit" with the software, one is e.g. stated in GPL's §1: 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. another possibility would be to charge for service offers which are based on the GPL-licensed software. however, any modifications to the software are bound to the GPL and _must_ therefore be released under GPL terms. that's why the GPL is often called a "viral license."
> I am not charging any money and I do not wish anyone else to do so > with my work, and sacrifices.
maybe you should get a clearer view of your wishes first. if you simply want to allow free use in non-commercial projects, you need a license that allows exactly that: free use in non-commercial projects. however, this only states how the software is to be _used_ but does not state how _changes_ to the original software are to be handled. you could enforce that modifications of your software are released with the same license the original software was released. so you would be allowed non-commercial use of those contributions. (**) if one of those contributions is really that huge or important and you want to make it available to your commercial customers, you would then have to negotiate a custom license with the copyright holder of the contribution. typically you would pay an appropriate amount for this license, or agree to share some percentage of your profit with the contributor. if the contributor grants you re-licensing rights for free - be happy :) but you sound a bit, like you would like to allow all people to contribute but only you are allowed to relicense stuff commercially and then make profit. although there are licensing possibilities to enforce this particular mode, as you might see, this is quite unfair - why should only you get paid for your stuff while you exploit contributors for your personal profit?
> So... I will build my own license - the SCL - Steel Community > License.
unless you have good license lawyers I would really discourage from building an own license as this is hard and very time-consuming work and unless you are familiar with the applicable laws, the chance is very high that the license you create is invalid and the terms of the license are not binding. instead I'd suggest to have a look at the Creative Commons licenses[1] especially at the "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License" [2] as this might be what you want. you could also have a look at the OSI-certified licenses [3] and see if some license there matches your needs. [1] http://creativecommons.org/license/ [2] http://creativecommons.org/license/results-one?license_code=by-nc-sa [3] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ final warning: IANAL :) **: this would also allow you to bundle and non-comercially distribute the contributions with the "main" code-base. that means, you would be able to incorporate contributed changes and release the results from your web-site free for non-commercial use. -- Best regards, Andreas

 [4/6] from: maximo:meteorstudios at: 17-Sep-2003 9:58


yeah, I did look at it but there is something missing in that there is a difference in using and modifying steel itself, which is not covered... I will be keeping the bare bones of some other license which is the closest match and then will edit the specifics. -max ----------- meteor Studios, T.D. ----------- Never Argue with an idiot. They will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience

 [5/6] from: maximo:meteorstudios at: 17-Sep-2003 14:45


> -----Original Message----- > From: Andreas Bolka [mailto:[andreas--bolka--gmx--net]] > warning upfront: licensing discussion ahead.
he he he.
> executive summary: > > - have a look at the Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial- > ShareAlike License" as that might be what you want
I am still looking at many licenses... these are on the top of the list.
> - double-licensing (free for non-commercial, seperate commercial > license) is tricky and harder than you might think, especially when > contributions of others are to be merged into the "main" code-base.
Its also very hard to enforce... unless your name ends with something like Gates or Lucas ;-)
> before embarking on double-licensing adventures, you should have a > clear idea about your intentions [...]
that's why its taking time to release the latest stuff... licensing is picky and its not easily undone.
> Tuesday, September 16, 2003, 10:45:47 PM, Maxim wrote: > > Basically, anyone who works on a OSI certified project HAS to share
<<quoted lines omitted: 3>>
> licenses (e.g. the MIT or BSD licenses), that do _not_ require > contributors to share their code.
Well, I just re-read the osi "open source" definition, and you are right that it is not in the guidelines that what you change must be re-distributed... BUT it does state that you cannot distribute a derived work, without it also being public and free... which is ok.
> users of your software licensed under a commercial license are only > bound to this commercial license.
hum, the way gpl is worded, it seems oherwise, but I guess your right (I'm pretty new to open licensing).
> however, GPL can make dual-licensing quite hard (as I explained in an > earlier mail). the practices of Mysql AB show one possible solution to > GPL/commercial-license dual-licensing issues.
Yeah, anything you did before getting a commercial license is bound to GPL (even while evaluating the software) and that's not much fun... And then, even getting a commercial license does not free that code from GPL... No one really applies this but that's how its supposed to be, in theory.
> maybe you should get a clearer view of your wishes first. if you > simply want to allow free use in non-commercial projects, you need a > license that allows exactly that: free use in non-commercial projects. > > however, this only states how the software is to be _used_ but does > not state how _changes_ to the original software are to be handled.
one of the very clear aspects of the SCL in its current form.
> if one of those contributions is really that huge or important and you > want to make it available to your commercial customers, you would then > have to negotiate a custom license with the copyright holder of the > contribution.
The way the SCL is right now, the code base, api and libraries are free and always will be. If a "commercial" license ever exists, it will be an extra package, with tools that are not part of the code base. If the code base needs to be improved for those extras to be built, those benefits will be part of the code base and thus also free... Actually, commercial useage IS free as long as you contribute to the code base OR by promoting your use of steel on your site and/or within applications built with it. Thats it!
> but you sound a bit, like you would like to allow all people to > contribute but only you are allowed to relicense stuff commercially > and then make profit.
nope, no profit in it for me except in being able to use the contributor's stuff for free like they are allowed to do so with steel, by contributing to it. There is no "commercial license". That's why its a community licence. Any one which contributes or promotes steel can use the code base for free in any cirmcumstance. Editing and redistribution of that codebase is handled seperatately from useage, but is still free and legal, as long as you follow the guidelines. Additionally, anyone can create plugins without having to redistribute them within the codebase. As long as they are not derived from the code base, they are not bound to the SCL.
> > So... I will build my own license - the SCL - Steel Community > > License.
<<quoted lines omitted: 3>>
> very high that the license you create is invalid and the terms of the > license are not binding.
Most licenses are themselves open-source. Thus, I will pick the one license which I must edit least and fill in the details. Frankly, I'm sure license legality is very fragile, simply because laws differ in every country and state, even microsoft spends millions defending their stuff. Its also very hard to defend ownership of any logic concept WRT patents because there are stupid patents which cover such mundane aspects of programming that pretty much everything we program is illegal in a way... only $$$$ people actually benefit from patents, because only they have the tens of thousands of dollars needed to defend a patent in court.
> instead I'd suggest to have a look at the Creative Commons licenses[1] > especially at the "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License" [2] > as this might be what you want. > > you could also have a look at the OSI-certified licenses [3] and see > if some license there matches your needs.
This takes so long... but I have looked at a few of them... and most do not completely separate the gap of useage and editing... None I've seen so far match the SCL in essence. I will post the SCL as stated in my previous mail, shortly, and then, we might go in more detail... anyways how am I going to watchdog people in china, australia, polland and the united-states... we all know its impossible... I just want the essence of the project to be clear and have a backup if anything ever goes out of hand... which I doubt. In any case, there never was intent to make money with steel. The license is simply to protect everyone who contributes and uses tools from the steel project. Thanks for the comments and suggestions... all is noted and taken into account (even if some of my replies seem to indicate otherwise)... I'm still analysing the best course of action. -MAx

 [6/6] from: lmecir:mbox:vol:cz at: 17-Sep-2003 22:19


altough the subject is getting offtopic, I had to make a couple of comments, because less informed readers may be misled by the discussion:
> Yeah, anything you did before getting a commercial license is bound to
GPL (even while evaluating the software) and that's not much fun... this is an error, you aren't bound by the GPL if you aren't distributing code. Moreover, you aren't bound by the GPL if you are distributing code under a different license which has been agreed upon by the copyright owner(s).
> And then, even getting a commercial license does not free that code from
GPL... The code isn't "freed" from GPL in the sense, that everyone using the software legally under the GPL doesn't lose his right to do so. OTOH, the code distributed under a non-GPL license is "free from GPL" in the sense, that anybody using it isn't bound by the GPL at all, even though the software may have been released by the GPL too. -L

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