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> You are free to modify this Software and publish patches. > It is forbidden to copy, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Softwa

by nadams 11y ago

> You are free to modify this Software and publish patches. > It is forbidden to copy, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software. You might want to get a lawyer on the phone - because that seems contradicting to me. This is why you should stick with open source licenses that have been vetted by a team of lawyers already. You should check out the AGPL license.

KingMob 11y ago
He linked to the enterprise license, not the community license. The CE license is open source, the EE is not.
jobvandervoort 11y ago
As KingMob pointed out, I linked to our proprietary license of GitLab Enterprise Edition. GitLab Community Edition is licensed under the MIT Expat license: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/LICENSE https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/LICENSE
- nadams 11y ago
  It doesn't matter which product it was for - it still seems contradictory. It says I can distribute patches but then it says I can't. I wasn't joking when telling you that you should get a lawyer on the phone. I've seen a number of people try to write their own software license - and fail miserably. It really has me kind of worried that your response wasn't "we did consult with a lawyer when creating that license".
  - antsar 11y ago
    In what way does it seem contradictory? It seems to allow one to write and publish patches, while disallowing the redistribution/resale of the original code.
    - nadams 11y ago
      Distributing a patch would require distributing parts of the original code (the patch file will include lines of original and changed code) - which the latter is not allowed per the license. I'm not saying that gitlab would go after you for just distributing a patch - but if anyone gobbled up gitlab coughOraclecough I'm sure they would summon a swarm of lawyers at your doorstep.
      - sytse 11y ago
        If you have any suggestions how to word this better I'm open to them. We did have a lawyer look at this. It is like sampling, you can use a bit but you can't use it all.
        nadams 11y ago
        Well for starters most licenses will define the meaning of the terms in question. You should define exactly what is a patch file (such as format and what it contains). Potentially a patch file could include whole files. Here is a hypothetical situation: what would you say if I included your entire program in a patch file. If you are saying patch files that contain your code are ok to distribute - but I'm sure you are going to say that's not ok. But why not? Your license says I can distribute patches - it just so happens this patch file contains every file in your program. The question here is how much patch file is too much? Is there a limit? A better idea would be to require your sign off on every patch. Or only allow patch files to be uploaded to a forum that is accessible to enterprise only customers (vBulletin has a similar setup).
        sytse 11y ago
        In contracts most terms are not defined. This allows the judge to interpret them according to their common meaning, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_(computing) I don't think most people will consider an entire program a patch. Having us sign off on every patch defeats the intent of the clause. The intent is to give our customers a way to submit merge requests on https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/merge_requests https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/merge_requests and to be able to comment on for example Stack Overflow with fixes they made so other customers can learn from that. We don't want to slow down that process.

by nadams 11y ago

KingMob 11y ago

He linked to the enterprise license, not the community license. The CE license is open source, the EE is not.

jobvandervoort 11y ago

As KingMob pointed out, I linked to our proprietary license of GitLab Enterprise Edition. GitLab Community Edition is licensed under the MIT Expat license: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/LICENSE https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/LICENSE

nadams 11y ago
It doesn't matter which product it was for - it still seems contradictory. It says I can distribute patches but then it says I can't. I wasn't joking when telling you that you should get a lawyer on the phone. I've seen a number of people try to write their own software license - and fail miserably. It really has me kind of worried that your response wasn't "we did consult with a lawyer when creating that license".
- antsar 11y ago
  In what way does it seem contradictory? It seems to allow one to write and publish patches, while disallowing the redistribution/resale of the original code.
  - nadams 11y ago
    Distributing a patch would require distributing parts of the original code (the patch file will include lines of original and changed code) - which the latter is not allowed per the license. I'm not saying that gitlab would go after you for just distributing a patch - but if anyone gobbled up gitlab coughOraclecough I'm sure they would summon a swarm of lawyers at your doorstep.
    - sytse 11y ago
      If you have any suggestions how to word this better I'm open to them. We did have a lawyer look at this. It is like sampling, you can use a bit but you can't use it all.
      - nadams 11y ago
        Well for starters most licenses will define the meaning of the terms in question. You should define exactly what is a patch file (such as format and what it contains). Potentially a patch file could include whole files. Here is a hypothetical situation: what would you say if I included your entire program in a patch file. If you are saying patch files that contain your code are ok to distribute - but I'm sure you are going to say that's not ok. But why not? Your license says I can distribute patches - it just so happens this patch file contains every file in your program. The question here is how much patch file is too much? Is there a limit? A better idea would be to require your sign off on every patch. Or only allow patch files to be uploaded to a forum that is accessible to enterprise only customers (vBulletin has a similar setup).
        sytse 11y ago
        In contracts most terms are not defined. This allows the judge to interpret them according to their common meaning, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_(computing) I don't think most people will consider an entire program a patch. Having us sign off on every patch defeats the intent of the clause. The intent is to give our customers a way to submit merge requests on https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/merge_requests https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/merge_requests and to be able to comment on for example Stack Overflow with fixes they made so other customers can learn from that. We don't want to slow down that process.