On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 8:27 PM, Thomas
Bruederli
<thomas@roundcube.net>
wrote:
Hi folks,
Some time ago we already had a discussion about possible
license
changes. See http://lists.roundcube.net/mail-archive/dev/2010-01/0000022.html
to refresh your memory.
Now, almost two years later we came to the conclusion that
it's time to act.
But let me describe our thoughts a bit more:
Current Situation
=================
Roundcube has inherited and built upon code from a variety of
projects, allowing it to grow quickly to the solution we all
love
today. In doing so, it has effectively also inherited its
licensing
policy from projects which were not handling these issues as
carefully
as one might have wished.
These projects have often done a "licensed under the GNU
General
Public License (GPL)" without an explicit version. Sometimes
this
statement was accompanied with a link to a web page, most
importantly
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.
This link was pointing at version 2
of the GPL, but it is the link that always leads to the latest
version, so right now is pointing to GPL version 3. And so did
Roundcube itself.
This, and the provisions in GPLv2 which say that you may at
your
option choose a later version if there is no explicit version
mentioned means that right now Roundcube is "GPL v2 or v3,
either may
be binding for you depending on how you got it" and would
*not* allow
proprietary extensions and modules and may or may not allow
proprietary skins, depending on your interpretation.
This is clearly not a perfect situation and it doesn't reflect
the
consensus within the Roundcube community (especially after the
last
licensing discussion) that proprietary modules (plugins)
should be
allowed, as should be proprietary skins. We meanwhile have
specified
Version 2 in our source but some links still point to the
above
mentioned URL which now shows Version 3 of the GPL.
So it would make a lot of sense to clarify this explicitly.
At the same time, the possibility of Roundcube being under
GPLv2
blocks some innovation we would like to do for future
versions, such
as for example inline ODF support through WebODF, which is
licensed
under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) Version 3.
Background information for the interested
=========================================
* GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 2:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
* GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 3:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
* A Quick Guide to GPLv3:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html
* GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) Version 3:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html
* Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
Proposed license clarification
==============================
Because of the incorporated numerous other components, the
only
options for licenses
are in the GNU GPL family, namely GNU GPLv2, GNU GPLv3, GNU
AGPLv3.
In order to become license compatible with some of the
technologies we
would like to be able to use in order to improve Roundcube, we
should
at the very least choose GNU GPL version 3.
We could also choose GNU AGPLv3, which would provide more
rights to
the users of Roundcube. It would mean that all users have the
right to
obtain the code of the instance that is providing their
service (minus
the additional modules, of course).
It would also ensure that modifications on the basic Roundcube
codebase will have to be made available as soon as the are
being used
to provide services over the internet, not just when they are
distributed in other ways.
This is the first choice we have.
Personally I'm okay with either, but as the recent discussion
showed
us, there are some arguments against the AGPL option. I would,
however, in any case suggest we explicitly leave the "or any
later
version" default in, so future license updates won't require
us to
look at this again.
Secondly, if we want to allow proprietary modules and skins,
which has
turned out to be a major concern of our "users", we should add
the
explicit permission to create modules under any license,
including a
proprietary one, which can be done through the following
exception to
GPLv3 or AGPLv3:
This file forms part of the Roundcube Platform for which
the
following exception is added: Plug-ins and Skins which
merely
make function calls to the Roundcube Platform, and for
that
purpose include it by reference shall not be considered
modifications of the Platform.
If you wish to use this file in another project or create
a
modified version that will not be part of the Roundcube
Platform,
you may remove the exception above and use this source
code under
the original version of the license.
I think this is incorrect and therefor I need some
clarification: how is this possible with either license?
Right now, this is not even possible for Wordpress and
themes, is it? If I buy a Wordpress plugin or theme, I am
allowed to put the source code online. And Wordpress is "just"
GPL (as is RoundCube currently). With the AGPL, I'd have to
provide the source to a RoundCube plugin because people can
use it through (!) a browser.
I don't know how you plan to have a legally binding license
and then have home-grown exceptions.
You should reach out to the FSF, as did Wordpress:
TL;DR: PHP files in themes must be GPL,
CSS/Images/JavaScript must not be GPL (but can be of course).
I'm guessing plugins are 100% GPL.
While the GPL allows someone who hosts RoundCube to make
modifications and not share them, the AGPL does not allow this
under any circumstances because people can 'connect' to
RoundCube via a browser. The AGPL tries to close this
so-called loophole. I'm not even sure if for example images
and css from a RoundCube skin could be licensed anything else
than AGPL.
Not that I am not a fan of open source, but I think there
should be limits as in what RoundCube as a project imposes on
the people who use it. I release all my open source with BSD
and MIT usually which is a (in layman's terms) "do as you
like"-license.
Sharing and contributing is the high road, but not
everything can be shared and the reasons should not be our
concern.
I think the AGPL makes it harder for commercial entities to
use RoundCube. These entities include plugin developers, web
hosters, theme designers, etc..
Till
The first paragraph provides the permission.
The second paragraph allows re-use of Roundcube's code in
other
projects without the additional permission. Otherwise it would
be too
easy to circumvent the license and re-use may be limited by
the
licenses of the projects that wish to re-use code.
The Way forward
===============
Because the Copyright in Roundcube is not consolidated, making
these
updates requires the agreement of all contributors to
Roundcube.
So if you have in the past contributed to Roundcube, we would
very
much like to ask you for your explicit agreement with this
path
forward and your preference with regards AGPLv3 / GPLv3, and
whether
you would exclude one or the other, and for which reasons.
We believe this primarily represents a clarification and an
adjustment
to what we practiced over the past years, and we hope that you
will
also see it that way.
But of course we cannot force anyone to agree, so for those
who prefer
to have their code removed from Roundcube rather than agree to
the
update, please let us know.
Timing
======
This will not affect the 0.7 release, which will still take
place
under the somewhat fuzzy licensing situation, but we'll want
to apply
this to HEAD so we can make sure all code is properly updated
and
conflicting code replaced before the 0.8 release.
Please let us know, what you think about this proposal.
Best regards,
Thomas