4 ms·

RtMidi license: MIT License w/ request to send modifications to developer

2 points by em3rgent0rdr 9y ago

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
RtMidi: realtime MIDI i/o C++ classes Copyright (c) 2003-2016 Gary P. Scavone Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is asked to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. This is, however, not a binding provision of this license. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  The non-binding provision "to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version" sounds like a neat compromise between copyleft and just plain opensource. It avoids the hesitancy which commercial developers might have about using strong copy-left.
mindcrime 9y ago
I'm kinda iffy on this. I mean, I get the idea behind it and I appreciate the spirit of it. But now we have yet one more home-grown license that probably hasn't been vetted by anybody, has unknown legal ramifications, and basically just adds to the noise and confusion around OSS licensing. Sure, as a layman, I can read this and assume that it probably means what I think it means. But if I wanted to incorporate this code into another project, would I really be willing to be the farm on that? License proliferation[1] is a real issue and I think we should all take it into consideration. Anyway, I hope the author at least submits this to OSI[2] and - hopefully - gets it certified as an OSI approved OSS license. [1]: https://opensource.org/proliferation-report https://opensource.org/proliferation-report [2]: https://opensource.org/approval https://opensource.org/approval
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  good idea about having the author submit this to OSI...I guess I'll make an issue report on that github page. But this license shouldn't have any concerns about legal ramifications since it explicitly states that the request is non-binding. So as far as the law is concern, this is MIT license.
  - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
    Ok, I submitted: https://github.com/thestk/rtmidi/issues/110 https://github.com/thestk/rtmidi/issues/110

2 points by em3rgent0rdr 9y ago

RtMidi: realtime MIDI i/o C++ classes Copyright (c) 2003-2016 Gary P. Scavone Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is asked to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. This is, however, not a binding provision of this license. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
The non-binding provision "to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version" sounds like a neat compromise between copyleft and just plain opensource. It avoids the hesitancy which commercial developers might have about using strong copy-left.

mindcrime 9y ago

I'm kinda iffy on this. I mean, I get the idea behind it and I appreciate the spirit of it. But now we have yet one more home-grown license that probably hasn't been vetted by anybody, has unknown legal ramifications, and basically just adds to the noise and confusion around OSS licensing. Sure, as a layman, I can read this and assume that it probably means what I think it means. But if I wanted to incorporate this code into another project, would I really be willing to be the farm on that? License proliferation[1] is a real issue and I think we should all take it into consideration. Anyway, I hope the author at least submits this to OSI[2] and - hopefully - gets it certified as an OSI approved OSS license. [1]: https://opensource.org/proliferation-report https://opensource.org/proliferation-report [2]: https://opensource.org/approval https://opensource.org/approval

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
good idea about having the author submit this to OSI...I guess I'll make an issue report on that github page. But this license shouldn't have any concerns about legal ramifications since it explicitly states that the request is non-binding. So as far as the law is concern, this is MIT license.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  Ok, I submitted: https://github.com/thestk/rtmidi/issues/110 https://github.com/thestk/rtmidi/issues/110