Intel and XMir

Posted Sep 20, 2013 4:00 UTC (Fri) by sitaram (guest, #5959)
In reply to: Intel and XMir by rahulsundaram
Parent article: Intel and XMir

I meant something official.

But even then, I think I searched for the wrong term or didn't look too far down or whatever. Fail on my part. Searching for "canonical contributor license agreement" works.

Intel and XMir

Posted Sep 20, 2013 9:18 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (6 responses)

AFAICS this agreement is extremely similar to Google's one and lot's of guys seems to cooperate with Google. Of course when you assign code to the Google you also get it back under terms of three-clause BSD license (which is as close to public domain in today's world as you could imagine), but it's still more-or-less identical copyright assignment to what Canonical is doing.

Intel and XMir

Posted Sep 20, 2013 10:43 UTC (Fri) by sitaram (guest, #5959) [Link] (5 responses)

It might look similar if you don't look too closely but Google does not reserve the right to make a *commercial* product out of it.

Specifically, [1] does not have the equivalent of section 2.3 in [2].

[1]: https://developers.google.com/open-source/cla/individual?...
[2]: http://www.canonical.com/sites/default/files/active/image...

Intel and XMir

Posted Sep 20, 2013 11:03 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (4 responses)

if it's under a 3 clause BSD license, that gives them the right to make a commercial product out of it.

The Apache license allows the same thing.

they don't _need_ a separate clause to give them that permission

Intel and XMir

Posted Sep 20, 2013 11:29 UTC (Fri) by sitaram (guest, #5959) [Link] (3 responses)

*Anyone* can, not just Google.

With the Canonical agreement, only Canonical can.

Intel and XMir

Posted Sep 20, 2013 11:44 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

that's true, but the tone of the post I was replying to implied that signing the canonical agreement would allow canonical to create a commercial product with your code, while signing a google agreement would not allow google to make a commercial product with your code.

If your argument is that with the google agreement _anyone_ can make a proprietary product with your code, but with the canonical agreement only canonical can make a proprietary product with your code, that's a very different thing.

Personally, I have trouble understanding how people can be so opposed to one company making a proprietary product with their code, but seem to be perfectly happy if anyone (including the one company they are complaining about) could do so.

and if you really are in this situation, just license your patch under the BSD license and then everyone can make proprietary versions of your code, and include it in codebases with incompatible licenses.

If you are Ok with this, then you should have no problem at all with Canonical including your code in their codebase, which they _can_ take proprietary in addition to the open version.

Intel and XMir

Posted Sep 20, 2013 11:59 UTC (Fri) by sitaram (guest, #5959) [Link]

It appears to me that we're rehashing what mjg said in the link Rahul posted somewhere above.

I'll stop here.

Intel and XMir

Posted Sep 20, 2013 14:11 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Personally, I have trouble understanding how people can be so opposed to one company making a proprietary product with their code, but seem to be perfectly happy if anyone (including the one company they are complaining about) could do so.

In the last case they are creating digital commons which everyone (yes, including the one company they are complaining about) can use for anything. In the first case they are acting as a unpaid workers and help to produce freemium software package which can/will be sold by one particular company.

and if you really are in this situation, just license your patch under the BSD license and then everyone can make proprietary versions of your code, and include it in codebases with incompatible licenses.

Everyone will be able to use my patch in their own proprietary projects but I will not be able to use their work in my proprietary project? Do you feel it's fair?

Both FSF's and Google's agreements feel “fair” (FSF's one gives noone right to create proprietary forks while Google's one gives everyone right to create proprietary forks) while Canonical's one is most definitely one-sided. BTW people start to be wary of FSF's agreement after GPLv3 fiasco because FSF relicensed their work under terms they don't like while they could do nothing (well, they could always leave GNU project and go back to GPLv2—and some of them actually did that).