NYCPHP Meetup

[David Krings]

Hi!

Ton's comments were along the lines of these as well.

John Campbell wrote:
>> - get credited (have my name mentioned in code) [snip]
> Fair enough.

Good.

> 
>> - mandate that any changes or improvements are sent to me [snip]
> Are you kidding?  One of the principals of open source is that people
> are free to modify the code.  Adding such a restriction to modifying
> the code would be a non-starter for most everyone.  Don't bother
> releasing the code if you include this restriction.  I suggest
> relaxing this requirement and putting a comment, "send bug fixes/
> patches to your at emal.com."

I obviously worded it wrong. That is exactly what I want. I can't enforce a 
mandate anyway, so why put one in. I shouldn't have used the word "mandate". I 
also don't want to put restrictions on modifications, I just have an interest 
in knowing about those for making the code better at the source.

>> - prohibit commercial use without my written consent, meaning that I am not
>> against a company using it in their web app, but I want to know about it and
>> most likely get into agreement on special terms such as not getting sued... [snip]
> 
> Do you want to prohibit commercial use, or do you want to prevent
> yourself from getting sued?  These are separate issues.  Keep in mind
> that preventing commercial use means no one will use your code.

I don't want to prohibit commercial use per sé and for this point as well, my 
intentions didn't make it into proper wording. My main concern here is that I 
don't want to get into legal trouble for being a bad coder or have someone 
drag me in front of some court demanding that I make 534 fixes within a week 
or else. I also want to have something in hand that gives some leverage if 
someone wants to patent "Programmatic connectivity between PHP Hypertext 
Preprocessor applications and MadCap Flare WebHelp outputs" or claim it as 
their own, obfuscate, and sell it. With the way I want to put it out I should 
cover that by the "poor man's patent": write it down and mail it to yourself, 
but don't open the envelope when you get it back. I think the handful of lines 
of code are just too unimportant for court cases or patents. But this is the 
USA, you can get sued for everything and you can patent and trademark everything.

> Just as an FYI, open source licenses don't specify what others can do
> with code, but instead they specify what others must do when
> (re)distributing the code.  The distinction is subtle, but very
> important.

That is why I ask you all as you know more about this than I do.

> I suggest dropping 2,3 and use the LGPL.  That will get you 1 plus
> legal indemnity.
> or just use the MIT license (public domain + legal indemnity)

Tom proposed the LGPL as well. So that is two recommendations for that. I will 
take a look at the LGPL and see what it states.

John, Tom, thanks for your very helpful advice! :)


David