[TYPO3-50-general] Contributing to TYPO3 v5 / FLOW3: License Agreement

[Robert Lemke]

Hi Steffen,

Am 29.04.2008 um 20:33 schrieb Steffen Müller:

> Well, the fact that the Apache Foundation wrote that thingi does not  
> at
> all imply that you won't get legal trouble.

No, but it is a wide-spread model which has also been adopted by many  
other
Open Source projects, so it's safe to say that a few lawyers have looked
at the details.

> On the other hand, I wonder how many "already-contributors" could get
> legal trouble, because signing the association contract conflicts  
> their
> employee contracts.

In those cases the contributor needs to send a Corporate CLA (CCLA).

>> This implies that the Association could at a later point decide to
>> license TYPO3 under
>> GPL v3 or FreeBSD license or whatever makes most sense. Without  
>> having a
>> CLA with all
>> contributors, the license practically can never be changed again.  
>> Even
>> dual licensing
>> would be possible.
>
> and even commercial licencing? I know this is pure theoretical, but  
> then
> could happen. Is there some point in the contract that prevents
> contributors from non open source licences? I couldn't find one.

Yes, commercial licensing would be possible but not exclusively. That  
means
we always have to provide TYPO3 under a free open source license as  
well.

The ExtJS project does that for example: ExtJS is licensed under the  
GPL v3
but for those companies who don't want or cannot use an Open Source  
License
(that really happens!) they sell a license exactly the same software.

Personally I think that could be another option to allow companies to  
sponsor
TYPO3: If they have no means to make donations or become member of the  
Association
due to some internal policies or whatever, they still could buy a  
license and
their accountants are happy.

Anyway, nothing of that is planned currently.

> Don't get me wrong, I strongly believe in you and the association. But
> the freedom of writing the GPL below my modest lines of contributed  
> code
> seems to me far more satisfying than shifting the responsibility upon
> the associations shoulders.

Yes and I am, as a contributor, of course in the same situation. But  
for me
personally this passage of the license gives me enough security:

   "In return, the Association shall not use Your Contributions in a  
way that
    is contrary to the public benefit or inconsistent with its  
nonprofit status
    and bylaws in effect at the time of the Contribution. Except for  
the license
    granted herein to the Association and recipients of software  
distributed by
    the Association, You reserve all right, title, and interest in and  
to Your
    Contributions."

As long as the Association is driven and controlled by the active  
members (and
that is something nobody can change) I'm also confident that the right  
decisions
will be taken.

>>
> So you could use GPL2 which is quite fair for most people. I don't see
> the problem here. We have tons of sucessful and widely used open  
> source
> projects using GPL2, including TYPO3.

Yes, TYPO3 v5 currently is licensed under the GPL v2. But ironically  
this means
that we cannot use most code of TYPO3 v4 because it is licensed under  
GPL v2
_or higher_.

> it's light on the decision process. The jumbo is still there. But I  
> have
> to admit, legal stuff is in almost any case jumbo. ;-)
>
> One more question:
> What about extensions/components in v.5? It sounds like extension
> developers also have to sign that contract.

If extensions are part of the official distribution: yes. But as you  
never
know if an extension will become part of it at a later point, it makes a
lot of sense to sign it in any case.

Just one more note: The reason why I started all this - doing research  
if it
makes sense to have CLAs, find a fitting CLA etc. - was that I want by  
all
means TYPO3 to stay free and have all flexibility with the license in  
case
our current model is a blocker (because it's not compatible with other  
licenses
for example). Imagine some company which contributed code would sue us  
at some
point - and these things do happen in other projects.

Thank you for caring about it!

robert