| Johan Stuyts 2006-06-17, 7:05 pm |
| Hi,
John Swapceinski and I want to release code that was previously
released under a proprietary license, under an open source license. See
http://www.icontract2.org/ for the code that we are looking for an open
source license for.
By using the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/index.php) I was
able to retrieve the original copyright notice/license of the code:
----
Copyright (C) 1997,1998 by Reto Kramer, All rights reserved. THIS IS
FREE SOFTWARE. Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this
software and documentation in all settings is hereby granted, provided
that NO FEE is charged for this software. It is legal to charge for the
CD the software may be distributed on (e.g. freeware archive CDs). This
copyright notice must appear in all copies of any software which is or
includes a copy or modification of this software. In all advertising
materials, documentation, and publications mentioning features or use
of this software you must credit the author.
This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty or
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
----
I already concluded that the license is very liberal, but what is
bugging me is that no fee may be charged for the software or any
derivatives. My interpretation is that this prevents the use of certain
open source licenses, specifically the Apache/BSD/MIT-style licenses I
wanted to release the code under at first.
What I am looking for is an open source license which is compatible
with the original license, i.e. it does not allow charging a fee for
the code or derivatives. Also, just like the Apache/BSD/MIT-style
licenses, it must not impose license restrictions/requirements on
client code of the code. Which of the many licenses listed at the Open
Source Initiative comply with these two conditions?
Please note that I am s ing advice from anyone, not just lawyers. I
intend to have a lawyer verify whether or not the suggested licenses
actually comply with the conditions above.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Johan Stuyts
|