thoughts on Fluid licensing and GPL

Tue Jul 10 09:51:56 EDT 2007

This is a really tough problem Sheila. Your thinking on it is pretty  
clear as far as I can tell (I'm not a lawyer but I've been involved  
in this kind of discussion for a few years now). I suggest that you  
actually engage an IP attorney to work through this. Barnaby Gibson  
from Ithaka helps out on things like this frequently but this one  
might be just a little beyond what he's able to do in spare cycles  
pro bono.

The challenge you're grappling with is figuring out the strategy that  
has the least likelihood of resulting in a major fork of the code due  
to license incompatibility. Your initial conclusion seems pretty  
logical: Choose two non-copyleft licenses, one of which can be  
combined with GPL code and dual license. I think the problem lies in  
the GPL's inherent ambiguity with regard to derivative works.

So, for example, let's say the Moodle community takes Fluid licensed  
code under the BSD license and integrates it with Moodle in a way  
that would likely be considered a derivative work. Not merely  
distributing the two separate pieces together. Then I think the  
situation gets a bit muddy. The derivative work would have to be GPL  
licensed. Maybe the likelihood of this is low given the way Fluid is  
being developed.

Anyway, Barnaby might chime in here. If you need a recommendation on  
a firm you could engage to help with this decision more formally  
contact me and I'll be glad to offer a suggestion.

-- 
Chris Coppola
coppola.rsmart.com
602.490.0472

On Jul 10, 2007, at 6:20 AM, sheila.crossey at utoronto.ca wrote:

> Hi Peter,
>
> Yes, it would be great to get input from Chris and others in the  
> Sakai licensing WG. I was thinking of posting this discussion there  
> anyway, so might as well do it now. All input and opinions are  
> appreciated and welcome (see my message at the end of the email  
> trail).
>
> Sheila
>
> Quoting Peter Wilkins <pwilkins at MIT.EDU>:
>
>> Hi Shelia:
>> On the outside chance you are unaware of the Sakai Licensing Working
>> Group, I recommend this link:
>>
>> http://issues.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/LIC/Home
>>
>> The 3rd Party Licenses section is a great resource.
>>
>> I have had a couple of conversations with Chris Coppola, and he has
>> been very helpful in providing some orientation to the confounding
>> world of open source licensing.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Peter
>>
>> Peter Wilkins
>> Technical Project Manager
>> DUE -  Office of Educational Innovation and Technology
>> N42-040n
>>
>> pwilkins at mit.edu
>>
>>
>> On Jul 9, 2007, at 10:34 AM, Sheila Crossey wrote:
>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> I've been pondering the issue of how to license Fluid code so  
>>> that   it can legally interoperate with software licensed under  
>>> the GPL -   in particular, Moodle or ATutor.
>>>
>>> According to the GNU website, GPL'd code can be "combined" only    
>>> with code licensed under a GPL-compatible licence. The website    
>>> classifies various licences, but does not list the ECL 1.0 which  
>>> is   the current Fluid licence. ECL 1.0 is probably compatible  
>>> with the   GPL, but we're planning to move Fluid to ECL 2.0 to  
>>> stay in synch   with Sakai. The problem is that ECL 2.0 is almost  
>>> identical to the   Apache 2.0 licence which is classified as  
>>> incompatible with the   GPL. So this means that Fluid code  
>>> licensed under ECL 2.0 could not   be "combined" with GPL'd code.  
>>> The definition of "combined" is not   entirely clear, and it's  
>>> possible that Fluid could be seen to be   arm's-length enough to  
>>> be considered as not combined with Moodle or   ATutor, but making  
>>> this argument is dangerously hair-splitting.
>>>
>>> One way to solve the problem is to license Fluid simultaneously    
>>> under two licences: ECL 2.0 plus a licence compatible with GPL.    
>>> This second licence could be the GPL itself, or a GPL- 
>>> compatible   non-copyleft licence such as the MIT licence. The  
>>> problem with   cross-licensing is that if a third party picks up  
>>> the code under   one licence, modifies it, and releases it under  
>>> that single   licence, then there is a danger of forking  
>>> especially if the   modifications are licensed under GPL meaning  
>>> we couldn't merge them   into our ECL 2.0 licensed version. In  
>>> light of this forking   problem, I think our best option is to  
>>> cross-license Fluid under   ECL 2.0 and a non-copyleft licence  
>>> such as MIT or BSD as this   should enable us to merge third  
>>> party modifications back into the   mainstream. This is not  
>>> bullet-proof since the third-party could   still choose to  
>>> license their modifications (which they own) under   GPL, but  
>>> they would be less likely to do this if they're modifying   non- 
>>> GPL code.
>>>
>>> Does anybody have a headache yet?
>>>
>>> As always, I must make the disclaimer that I am not a lawyer and  
>>> I   don't have a perfect understanding of all of this, so please  
>>> feel   free to poke holes in my reasoning.
>>>
>>> Sheila
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Sheila Crossey
>>>
>>> Senior Project Coordinator
>>> Adaptive Technology Resource Centre
>>> Faculty of Information Studies
>>> University of Toronto
>>>
>>> voice: (416) 946-7820
>>> fax:    (416) 971-2896
>>> email: sheila.crossey at utoronto.ca
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> fluid-talk mailing list
>>> fluid-talk at fluidproject.org
>>> http://fluidproject.org/mailman/listinfo/fluid-talk
>
>
>