On 25 Jun 2001 10:26:10 -0400, Shane Hathaway wrote:
According to management, there's a zope-license list somewhere and we expect to move to a GPL compatible license. Paul says:
"I think the goal should be for Zope and Python to converge on the same license, with perhaps the new license being some off-the-shelf license like Apache's."
Hmm. So a BSD style license, then. Are there currently any Zope-derived distributions that are proprietary (third-party or DC's)? If not, does DC anticipate there being this kind of third-party proprietary derived distribution in the future? Other than keeping the door open for this eventuality, is there any other reason to choose a BSD style license over the GPL? As I see it, BSD style licenses ensure that anyone can make proprietary derived distributions. They are very similar to public domain in this regard. The GPL ensures that no-one can make proprietary derived distributions, except that the copyright holder always has the option of releasing under another license if they wish, so dual licensing or changing the license is always an option *if you have contributors assign the copyright of their contributions to you*. NPL (Netscape Public Licence) style licenses try to make it possible for no-one to make proprietary redistributions *except the original author*. The license generally requires contributors to allow the original author to make proprietary redistributions using their contributions even without copyright assignment (or that assignment is implicit in the contribution). Note that re-licensing (or dual licensing) would still require contributors to assign copyright just as with the GPL. Given that DC is the copyright holder for Zope, they would do well (IMO) to consider relicensing Zope under the GPL or LGPL, as that would force anyone who wished to redistribute a proprietary version of Zope to negotiate a separate license with DC, actually strengthening DC's position in that regard, while generally ensuring that contributors work would remain GPL. If some contributor did not wish to let DC relicense their contribution, they could simply not assign the copyright to DC. DC has the option of not adding the contribution into the distribution, or of removing the contribution from any relicensed version. So. The current ZPL is essentially a BSD style license with the optional attribution clauses, and a mandatory advertising clause (although there's an escape hatch too). It seems that the mandatory advertising clause is most applicable when someone creates a proprietary derived distribution of Zope. If there are none such (I'm not aware of any), then the clause is unneccessary. Unless I've misunderstood something (which is certainly possible), DC doesn't seem to have anything to lose by switching from a BSD style license to the GPL (or a GPL style license with an additional optional attribution clause), and quite a bit to gain. Note that this is a different option than merely switching to a BSD style license that is 'GPL compatible'. Michael Bernstein.