About the licence

mokhet · 2005-04-26 23:11:24

http://xinha.python-hosting.com/wiki/Licence

the licence page say not much things, which is good, but i would like to have a few explanations if possible.

1) Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2) Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3) Neither the name of interactivetools.com, inc. nor the names of its
contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this
software without specific prior written permission.

I dont think anyone is using Xinha in a binary version and i dont consider my use as a binary version, so this point is quite easy to check

For the (3) , it is asked me to not use the name interactivetools to sell my products, well ehehe ok, that's not a problem at all. Noone of my colleagues even known the name of IT, so there's no chance our customers hear about it. So again, this point is checked.

But I wonder what i have to do exactly to legally check point (1) . My use of xinha, as a lot of us here i think, is to provide an easy way to our customers to update some content on their website via a backoffice. In this case, to be legally allowed to sell my tools, am I supposed to :

1) drop the licence in the xinha directory ?
2) send the licence to my customers ? I doubt email is valid enough
3) add a link on every page that's use Xinha ?
4) not allowed to remove the about icon from iconbar ?

or perhaps all of them, or perhaps something else.

Also, is there something specific to check when code is sold or when only the right to use the final tool is sell ?

Thank in advance for any information, my boss asked me today and I was not able to give him a straight answer.

kimss · 2005-04-27 08:50:04

Interesting discussion, the everlasting GPL and such. From what I have understood about the GPL and such licenses, you are FUBAR when the GPL license is integrated in your software in a way you accually need it, meaning that your software is renderes useless without it if you know what I mean.

I have "solved" this problem with integrating several editors in my CMS, Ive integrated :

- htmlAREA (Xinha will be replacing this as soon as Xinha enters an official stable release)
- FCKeditor
- TinyMCE
- Xinha
- Xinha Nightly
- Xstandard light
- Standard textfield

So in my opinion my CMS is not in need of any of theese editors, they are merely a tool which our customers can use to edit the accuall page in the CMS. The editor is not a "vital" part of the CMS, but a handy tool. Removing it doesnt break out CMS at all, meaning our CMS does not require it. All my plugins are created within the APIs for the different WYSIWYG, so again Im not incorporating any of the editors code in my code. This would mean I can keep my code Proprietary, and to be extra nice I include a folder with our installation named "GPL" where the source of all the editors are stored in their ZIPS (Which could be downloaded aswell from their webpage).

Having all the Copyrights in the JS code doesnt bother me at all, since none of our customers really looks in the code anyway, and using Open Source editors really mean that my support is focused on the CMS and its functionality, while I can depend on the developers for the editors to fix bugs and such (And from time to time I surely would try to help the development for the editors aswell if I can help).

If the license would mean that we couldnt sell our products or that I would need to GPL all our work this would only mean the death of all Open Source editors (In proprietary software that is), and editors like Xstandard would be applied instead (Really an astounding editor, at an affordable price aswell!).

The final sollution - again - which is a dumb one, is to make your system plug and play compatible for all the different editors, and let your customer himself add the editor component. I recall this sollution was mentioned in solving the MySQL license which has bothered alot of people lately. You cant ship MySQL with your software, however your customer can install it himself.

Then again I might be all wrong here, but it doesnt seem anyone else has come up with a better explernation as far as I can see, yet,

niko · 2005-04-27 09:38:33

i don't have answers mokhet's question, but i do know that xinha is NOT GPL!!

kimss · 2005-04-27 12:09:40

You are right, the htmlArea is under the BSD licence which is much much more relaxed than the GPL indeed. I just rambled along since it was an old discussion with the editors, but you are corrent it didnt fit very well here regadring the Xinha editor,

guillaumed · 2005-05-02 02:26:52

Good debate... The problem of licence is always very complicated.. So I don't think you can find a solution here.. I was at the start of the ObjectWeb consortium (as board member) and we had a lot of discussion about it... We decided to take an already defined one (LGPL)..

The main point to take in account : remember that when using it you are not in the redistribution case...

gogo · 2005-05-11 06:38:27

As far as I am aware, as long as the licence text is present in the source files, you are fine, playig it safe it's also present in the about dialog.

Don't worry too much about it, it is a varient of a BSD licence, so pretty much you can do anything you want with it provided you retain the copyright notices.

niko · 2005-05-11 11:52:39

Will it be possible (some day in the future) to create a new Xinha-licence?

of course the "Xinha was originally based on work by Mihai Bazon which is:" must stay.

(i mean when nobody knows the term htmlarea anymore )

makka · 2006-12-28 19:07:24

Hi guys have you gotten to the bottom of this?

according to bsd licence, can the info button (about the editor) be removed from toolbar? or not
I'd like to use it in my own simple cms that I'm building and dont want the info button or anything - it will stay written in the source code though -> this is the only thing that the licence requres isn't it?

thanks for your answers

mharrisonline · 2006-12-29 01:13:30

I understood that to satisfy the HTMLArea license the info button had to stay on the toolbar. Originally, you also had to say somewhere on your software (splash screen, login page, etc. that your software contained code from InteractiveTools, but in 2002 that changed to just require the info button, and the license on the htmlarea.js file. As I remember it. Maybe that info about the license change of 2002 (2003?) is still on the HTMLArea.com site somewhere, but I'm pretty sure it specifically said you had to keep the info button. The license change happened at about the time HTMLArea 2 was replaced by HTMLArea 3, becoming, I believe, the first WYSIWYG to also work in Mozilla. Does anyone else remember this?

mharrisonline · 2006-12-29 01:33:19

OK, now I'm confused. I just searched the HTMLArea site and found this entry by InteractiveTools about the license being changed for version 2.03, no longer requiring the about button.

http://www.htmlarea.com/forum/htmlArea_ … ngine#5060

The post says:

"Here's what's new:

"Version 2.03 (Released: December 17, 2002)

"new license - switched to open source "BSD style" software license. The "About this editor" button is no longer required.
"readme updates - minor updates, spelling, and grammer fixes.

"Version 2.02a (Released: December 5, 2002)

"fixed error in readme.html example code under "How do I add htmlArea to my web page?".

"We're updating the main htmlarea web page so you should be able to download it from there shortly. Stay tuned.

"Dave Edis - Senior Developer
"interactivetools.com"

makka · 2007-01-01 12:44:59

Happy New Year to all from Slovenia.

Thank you MHarrison. Still the answer is not clear. Xinha is based on HTMLArea 3 so the licence according to your post should be BSD - "no button required". But is it?

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#1 2005-04-26 23:11:24

About the licence

#2 2005-04-27 08:50:04

Re: About the licence

#3 2005-04-27 09:38:33

Re: About the licence

#4 2005-04-27 12:09:40

Re: About the licence

#5 2005-05-02 02:26:52

Re: About the licence

#6 2005-05-11 06:38:27

Re: About the licence

#7 2005-05-11 11:52:39

Re: About the licence

#8 2006-12-28 19:07:24

Re: About the licence

#9 2006-12-29 01:13:30

Re: About the licence

#10 2006-12-29 01:33:19

Re: About the licence

#11 2007-01-01 12:44:59

Re: About the licence

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