Hey all,
at the moment I mail web application developers to license their code freely. Now I have a (probably easy) question regarding license compatibility:
A developer wants to release his application as MIT/X11. It uses the Dojo toolkit which is licensed as modified BSD (or Academic Free License 2.1).
Is this possible? The third clause of the modified BSD seems to prevent that: »Neither the name of the <organization> nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.«
Thanks in advance. :)
-- Jan-Christoph Borchardt http://libreprojects.net
Am Dienstag, 12. April 2011 12:56:16 schrieb Jan-Christoph Borchardt:
A developer wants to release his application as MIT/X11. It uses the Dojo toolkit which is licensed as modified BSD (or Academic Free License 2.1).
Is this possible?
In general the license of each component must be followed. For the part one person, e.g. a developer, hold the exclusive copyrights, this person can release the part under a license.
The third clause of the modified BSD seems to prevent that: »Neither the name of the <organization> nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.«
This would mean you cannot use the organisation doing the Dojo part or their contributors to endorse Dojo or products based on it. But why would someone do this? :)
IANAL, Bernhard
On 12.04.2011 10:56, Jan-Christoph Borchardt wrote:
Hey all,
at the moment I mail web application developers to license their code freely. Now I have a (probably easy) question regarding license compatibility:
A developer wants to release his application as MIT/X11. It uses the Dojo toolkit which is licensed as modified BSD (or Academic Free License 2.1).
Is this possible? The third clause of the modified BSD seems to
prevent that:
»Neither the name of the<organization> nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.«
Thanks in advance. :)
Hi there,
MIT License ~= X11 License ~= 2-Clause-BSDL ~= ISC License
It is debatable whether 2-Clause BSDL is the same as 3-Clause BSDL, since international conventions on copyright and many national laws don't allow the specified promotion anyways.
Still, I don't see your problem. Dojo's License only applies to Dojo, as it is not copyleft. So anything your developer does can be licensed under an arbitrary license, so long, as Dojo's copyright header is preserved for the Dojo-Code involved. In other words, just tell your developer to not call his app "Dojo Powerpack X" and he'll be fine.
Of course, this is just personal advice and not legal counsel. If you want to be sure, consult a lawyer.
Regards, Hannes
Thank you both Bernhard and Hannes.
Seeing how it can be used even in proprietary products it should be no problem, I just wasnt sure because of this clause. I didnt know if Dojo can be viewed on its own.
As Im even less of a lawyer, that helped.
On 12.04.2011 10:56, Jan-Christoph Borchardt wrote:
Hey all,
at the moment I mail web application developers to license their code freely. Now I have a (probably easy) question regarding license compatibility:
A developer wants to release his application as MIT/X11. It uses the
Dojo
toolkit which is licensed as modified BSD (or Academic Free License
2.1).
Is this possible? The third clause of the modified BSD seems to
prevent that:
»Neither the name of the<organization> nor the names of its
contributors
may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.«
Thanks in advance. :)
Hi there,
MIT License ~= X11 License ~= 2-Clause-BSDL ~= ISC License
It is debatable whether 2-Clause BSDL is the same as 3-Clause BSDL, since international conventions on copyright and many national laws don't allow the specified promotion anyways.
Still, I don't see your problem. Dojo's License only applies to Dojo, as it is not copyleft. So anything your developer does can be licensed under an arbitrary license, so long, as Dojo's copyright header is preserved for the Dojo-Code involved. In other words, just tell your developer to not call his app "Dojo Powerpack X" and he'll be fine.
Of course, this is just personal advice and not legal counsel. If you want to be sure, consult a lawyer.
Regards, Hannes _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion