license

[Paul Edwards]

From my reading of the Open Watcom
license agreement, it is only for
personal use, not commercial use.
What are commercial people meant
to do? What compiler are they
expected to buy that is compatible
with Open Watcom?

Thanks. Paul.

[Paul S Person]

On Wed, 2 Jan 2019 03:37:58 -0800 (PST), Paul Edwards

Post by Paul Edwards
From my reading of the Open Watcom
license agreement, it is only for
personal use, not commercial use.
What are commercial people meant
to do? What compiler are they
expected to buy that is compatible
with Open Watcom?

First, this was discussed in the past, but you would probably have to
dig through a /lot/ of posts to find it.

The Wiki http://wiki.openwatcom.org/index.php/Main_Page clearly
states:

An Open Source license from Sybase allows free commercial and
non-commercial use of Open Watcom.

IIRC, this is not the standard open source license, but one crafted by
Sybase's lawyers, and that has caused some confusion, hence the prior
discussions.

IIRC, the discussions all indicated that the rules are what you might
expect for an open source project: you cannot distribute our source
code for money. You can distribute your own products built with our
compilers/linkers/etc for money. You can even include, say, the DLL
forms of the libraries /with your own products/, even those sold for
money. And so on.

But I can /not/ be held authoritative for my possibly-incorrect memory
of discussions read perhaps 20 years ago!

[Steven Levine]

On Tue, 15 Jan 2019 17:53:38 UTC, Paul S Person
<***@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:

Hi Paul,

FWIW, I have always had a problem with the wording of some parts of
the Sybase license, but we were not able to get Sysbase's lawyers to
change the wording. I can only guess what they were thinking.

Post by Paul S Person
The Wiki http://wiki.openwatcom.org/index.php/Main_Page clearly
An Open Source license from Sybase allows free commercial and
non-commercial use of Open Watcom.

This was the intent, unfortunately, this statement conflicts with with
the actual license:

http://wiki.openwatcom.org/index.php/Open_Watcom_Public_License

and license.txt in the Perforce repo.

Section 1.8 clearly defines Sysbase's definition of "Personal Use" and
Section 2.1 clearly states that only "Personal Use" is licensed.

There is some wiggle room in that section 1.10 defines "You" and
"Your" in such as way that these terms might refer to commerical
entity. So "You," as a commercial entity, can use the source code for
"Personal Use." I will leave it to the lawyers to determine exactly
what this means.

You can definitely distribute the source code for money. See Section
6's reference to "Covered Code."

Of course, Section 6 is somewhat problematic since it refers to itself
in:

"6. Additional Terms. You may choose to offer, and to charge a fee
for, warranty, support, indemnity or liability obligations and/or
other rights consistent with this License ("Additional Terms") to one
or more recipients of Covered Code."

But as I mentioned, I have always had a problem with some of the
license wording.

Steven

[Paul S Person]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2019 10:21:25 -0800, Paul S Person

On Tue, 22 Jan 2019 21:26:21 +0000 (UTC), "Steven Levine"

Post by Steven Levine
FWIW, I have always had a problem with the wording of some parts of
the Sybase license, but we were not able to get Sysbase's lawyers to
change the wording. I can only guess what they were thinking.

This brings back vague echoes of memories. And I agree with the basic
point -- that it is very very hard to see what, if anything, they had
in mind.

Post by Steven Levine

Post by Paul S Person
The Wiki http://wiki.openwatcom.org/index.php/Main_Page clearly
An Open Source license from Sybase allows free commercial and
non-commercial use of Open Watcom.

This was the intent, unfortunately, this statement conflicts with with
http://wiki.openwatcom.org/index.php/Open_Watcom_Public_License
and license.txt in the Perforce repo.
Section 1.8 clearly defines Sysbase's definition of "Personal Use" and
Section 2.1 clearly states that only "Personal Use" is licensed.

2.1 You may use, reproduce, display, perform, modify and distribute
Original Code, with or without Modifications, solely for Your internal
research and development and/or Personal Use, provided that in each
so "internal research and development" is certainly covered.

Post by Steven Levine
There is some wiggle room in that section 1.10 defines "You" and
"Your" in such as way that these terms might refer to commerical
entity. So "You," as a commercial entity, can use the source code for
"Personal Use." I will leave it to the lawyers to determine exactly
what this means.

And this section
4. Larger Works. You may create a Larger Work by combining Covered
Code with other code not governed by the terms of this License and
distribute the Larger Work as a single product. In each such instance,
You must make sure the requirements of this License are fulfilled for
the Covered Code or any portion thereof.
would seem to contemplate creation of works for distribution to
others.

Post by Steven Levine
You can definitely distribute the source code for money. See Section
6's reference to "Covered Code."
Of course, Section 6 is somewhat problematic since it refers to itself
"6. Additional Terms. You may choose to offer, and to charge a fee
for, warranty, support, indemnity or liability obligations and/or
other rights consistent with this License ("Additional Terms") to one
or more recipients of Covered Code."

"Covered Code" is "Original Code" which /can/ be the source code, or
/can/ be the compiled code. And this doesn't allow you to /sell/ it,
but rather to sell a warranty or a support contract. I suspect that
"indemity or liability obligations" means that you can, in effect,
sell insurance to your customer so that, if /they/ get sued, /you/
pay. But it is certainly not entirely clear.
You must obtain the recipient's agreement that any such Additional
Terms are offered by You alone, and You hereby agree to indemnify,
defend and hold Sybase and every Contributor harmless for any
liability incurred by or claims asserted against Sybase or such
Contributor by reason of any such Additional Terms.
although it /might/ refer to para 6, it /might/ also refer to the
warranty, service contract, insurance, whatever that you are actually
selling.
But IANAL, and so could not say what it means even if I understood it.

Post by Steven Levine
But as I mentioned, I have always had a problem with some of the
license wording.
Steven

Sorry for this:
I sent the message while trying to note that my reference to
"Additional Terms" was to the first time it appears in quotes and
parentheses in section 6. The point is that that reference may (or may
not) be /defining/ "Additional Terms" to mean terms imposed on
customers by people using Open Watcom rather that this paragraph
itself. But, then again, who can say?

[Paul S Person]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2019 10:26:43 -0800, Paul S Person
<***@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:

And /that/ is what happened when I tried to respond to my own message
while it was still in the outbox:

the whole message is there, with my addition, but in what I expect is
a /very/ confusing format. My apologies as needed.

I will try to keep this in mind in the future, should a similar
situation arise.