Licensing

[Richard Gaskin]

Peter Haworth wrote:
 > Just to clarify and make sure I'm not about to break an licensing
 > rules, my proposed license for lcStackBrowser is not GPL compatible
 > since it will specifically prohibit a licensed user from giving its
 > code to anyone else or using its code in any of their products
 > without my consent, except in the form of a license transfer approved
 > by me.  They can of course change, add to, or delete the code for
 > their own personal use.
 >
 > However, the stack will be running in Livecode Community Edition
 > which is GPL licensed so hopefully  an lcStackbrowser user would not
 > be in breach of Livecode's Community Edition license. Always
 > remembering that lcStackBrowser is strictly a development utility
 > and has no part to play in the execution of a stack or a standalone.

Any plugins made with the Commercial Edition and used within the 
Commercial Edition IDE can have any license you like so long as it 
doesn't conflict with the terms of the Commercial Edition EULA, which is 
pretty liberal.

I can't speak for Kevin so hopefully he'll chime in here with any 
clarifications that may be needed, but my understanding of RunRev's 
position on the Community Edition is consistent with the GPL 
interpretation used by Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla, and others, in which 
all code running in the same engine is governed by the license for that 
engine.

Because LC is dual-license our situation is less clear than with 
GPL-only systems like Wordpress, so being neither a lawyer nor Kevin I 
would venture only these assumptions and rely on Kevin to clarify:

If a plugin is made with the Commercial Edition, it can be run within 
the Community Edition under GPL or any GPL-compatible license - the FSF 
has a list of GPL-compatible licenses here:
<https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses>

If a plugin is created with the Community Edition, it must use the same 
license the Community Edition uses, GPL v3.

This interpretation seems consistent with the LC FAQ:

     Can I use closed source libraries, components or embed LiveCode
     in a closed source application?

     You cannot redistribute software that includes closed source
     libraries with the open source version of LiveCode. Anything
     that is part of your application must be made available under
     the same GPL license.
<http://livecode.com/support/ask-a-question/>

That said, the wording there is a bit unclear (did they mean to write 
"...in an open source application"?), and it addresses a standalone 
rather than the IDE itself.

Still, I tend toward a conservative approach for my own work, so 
anything I distribute for use in the Commercial Edition IDE as at least 
GPL-compatible if not GPL v3 specifically.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com