Contractors and open source software

[Richard Gaskin]

Mark Talluto wrote:

> I had to work through a contract recently. This particular section was
> interesting. Thought I would share it here. I changed the organization
> name to [company] to protect this well respected entity.
>
> I can understand their view on the use of open source software. What
> are your thoughts?
>
> - - -
> Public Software. Contractor will inform [company] in advance of
> incorporating any open source software into deliverables or services
> provided to [company] under this Agreement, provide [company] with an
> analysis of alternative options that do not include open source
> software, and will proceed with the use of open source software only
> to the extent of [company]’s written consent. To the extent Contractor
> incorporates permitted open source software into products or services
> provided to [company] under this Agreement such open source software
> (and/or Contractor’s inclusion thereof) will not require any software
> developed or delivered under the Agreement to be disclosed or
> distributed in source code form or made freely available to others.
> - - -

Warren Samples' reply said it well.

Nothing to add beyond an appreciation for predictable licensing.  MIT,
Apache, GPL - all very popular and well known.

Proprietary software allows proprietary delivery, but with a very
complicated hitch: you have to review every license of every component
carefully to make sure all terms are compatible with one another.  This
is especially difficult with proprietary software since most licenses
are, well, proprietary themselves.


> I tried looking at is from a very wide perspective and considered that
> portions of the LiveCode engine are open-sourced, even if we are using
> the closed source version.

If one were delivering something under open source license, I would
strongly recommend using the GPL-governed Community Edition.  The
binaries are similar but not the same, and only the GPL-governed edition
gives you the right to redistribute the engine in standalone form under
GPL license.


> So, we requested to have that section removed from the contract. Guess
> what? They took it out. Now I have nothing to worry about. Still found
> it interesting.

Some of the best business advice I was ever given was from my boss when
I was doing contract review for an environmental remediation firm (talk
about loooooong contracts):

"Their counsel's job is to ask for the world.  Your job is to ask for
half of it back."

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