Clarifying the licencing (dual licence core vs. contributions)

[xavier]

Hi,

The FSF High Priority Free Software Projects is currently being discussed on a list at the floss fundations http://lists.flossfoundations.org/mailman/listinfo/foundations-software


We are discussing and comparing several free softwares, and one interesting question about CiviCRM licensing has been rised:

Code: [Select]

> (The other is that the
> licensing is completely unclear, because patchers must send changes
> under an AGPLv3-incompatible license, yet the project is AGPLv3'd.  It
> makes no sense, and would make it impossible for me and many others to
> contribute.)

This, I believe, is a more serious issue.  I noticed that problem
too.  Actually, I can't figure out what they're doing:
      http://civicrm.org/licensing
Their lack of explanation doesn't help either.  It's just "here's
licensing terms to apply to your code when you give it to us."  I
don't trust this, and I would not want to donate code under these
terms. My guess is that when you license to them under the Artistic
License, that allows them to build proprietary forks with your code,
if they wish.

I'm personally not very convinced either of that dual system, partly because it seems to be more complicated than necessary.

Am I right assuming that the goal is that you keep the freedom to change the licence of CiviCRM (eg AGPL v2 to v3), without having to run after all the contributors ?

Another question: who has the copyright of the software ? Is it the (for profit) CiviCRM LLC or the (501c3 non-profit) Social Source Foundation ?

X+

[Donald Lobo]

a few thoughts and comments on xaviers post

1. In general i (personally) do agree and find it strange that contributions are under AFL while we license under AGPL. Would make me wary of donating a "significant" chunk of code to the project too.

2. The reasoning was it gives "us" more control over the code base if we wanted to dual license it etc (note that all this happened 3 years ago when we were new to the game also). For folks that are interested, our lawyer Larry Rosen will be able to give you better answers. Note that you will have to pay his normal billing rate (i assume)

3. However, the number/type of contributions we have gotten / expected to get into core is fairly minimal (i.e. there have not been any large chunks contributed as yet). Note that you can create a drupal module (like CiviNode or the others) and interface with CiviCRM etc under your own license terms and not be part of the core distribution.

4. If licensing is the biggest issue / stumbling block, we'd be willing to rework those terms to make it more community friendly / equitable / in line with other open source projects (with a CLA etc). However, I'd rather avoid spending a lot of time on it until they decide on the platorm etc. legal fees are not cheap and its a fair amount of time for us to spend. Talk/discussion (especially in committee) on the other hand is cheap and plentiful (IMO)

5. The copyright is held by CiviCRM LLC. So a single entity controls the copyright for the entire code base (right now). Dave Greenberg and myself are the partners in CiviCRM LLC

6. We have talked about this in the past and have given similar answers to the above. Some of the links that this has been discussed in the past include:

http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php?topic=391.0
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php?topic=3373.0

lobo

[xavier]

3. However, the number/type of contributions we have gotten / expected to get into core is fairly minimal (i.e. there have not been any large chunks contributed as yet). Note that you can create a drupal module (like CiviNode or the others) and interface with CiviCRM etc under your own license terms and not be part of the core distribution.

It is my understanding of the AGPL that we can write whatever extension/contribution under the AGPL (and not the AFL), and make the code source available as required, but outside of the core. Obviously, that'd be a not so smart situation, to be resolved either by relicensing under the AFL, or by you accepting contributions covered by AGPL (+CLA etc).

 

4. If licensing is the biggest issue / stumbling block, we'd be willing to rework those terms to make it more community friendly / equitable / in line with other open source projects (with a CLA etc). However, I'd rather avoid spending a lot of time on it until they decide on the platorm etc. legal fees are not cheap and its a fair amount of time for us to spend.

I'll certainly push your comments on the mailing list, thanks

X+

[Piotr Szotkowski]

Basically, we want to be able to change CiviCRM licensing (much like we did when we switched from AGPL to GNU AGPL 3 for CiviCRM 2) in the future without having to hunt down every copyright holder and ask for their permission. Licensing the contributors’ code under AFL 3 to us grants us this possibility, but it does require the contributor to trust us not to abuse this power (note that we’re only allowed to license the AFL-ed code under licenses that ‘do not contradict the terms and conditions, including Licensor’s reserved rights and remedies’ of the AFL 3).

We’re open to discussing other licensing options, but, as Lobo wrote above, would rather not spend our time and money on this without having a solid proposition from the community first.