[hydra-dev] Licensing Survey

[Kevin P. Fleming]

On 06/10/2010 09:18 AM, Malcolm C. Davenport wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> On 2010-06-10 08:59, Malcolm C. Davenport wrote:
>>> To ensure we're putting the licensing question directly in people's
>>> faces, we're sending out a survey that should result in an e-mail
>>> invitation in your INBOX shortly.
>>
>> Is that the Zoomerang thing that I promptly fed to Spamassassin's
>> Bayesian learning engine?
>>
>> If so, please re-send. ;)
> 
> Re-sent.  And, hopefully that didn't wonkify anything for anyone else who's note yet taken it - if so, please let me know.

While looking over the survey responses, it has become apparent that
there may be some confusion and/or misunderstanding about the GPLv2's
obligations and how our stated interpretation would affect usage of
Project Hydra. I'll try to clarify the two points we are concerned about
here:

First, there is a concern that just using Hydra along with additional
components that use the Hydra APIs would require that the source code of
those components be published or otherwise made available. Since the
GPLv2 is a distribution license, *usage* does not trigger its
obligations at all. The only act that can require the source code for a
component that uses the Hydra APIs to be made available is
*distribution* of that component, not usage. Even in this case, the
author of the component is only obligated to make the source code
available to the direct recipients of the component; there is no
obligation to publish the source code. The recipients of the source code
are of course free to redistribute it if they wish, since they received
it under the terms of the GPLv2 which allows them to do that.

Second, there is a concern that if a component is distributed and thus
its source code must be distributed as well, that component somehow
becomes 'part of' the project itself. This is not true; any component
not distributed as part of Hydra is an independent work, and all rights
to that work belong to its copyright holders. Even if that component's
source code is distributed under the GPLv2, that does not give Digium or
any other Hydra copyright/license holder permission to use it under any
terms except the GPLv2 terms.

-- 
Kevin P. Fleming
Digium, Inc. | Director of Software Technologies
445 Jan Davis Drive NW - Huntsville, AL 35806 - USA
skype: kpfleming | jabber: kfleming at digium.com
Check us out at www.digium.com & www.asterisk.org