Computerworld NZ: Giving Back to Open Source
Dec 16, 2003, 01:00 (2 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Jon Udell)
"My recent column on open source citizenship, attracted more
than the usual amount of email and weblog commentary. Lots of
people are thinking about whether, and how, to coordinate inhouse
development with open source projects. Licensing, employment
agreements, open source culture and government policy are some of
the issues raised in the follow-on discussion.
"With regard to licensing, several readers pointed out that a
modified version of the GPL (GNU general public licence), the AGPL
(Affero GPL), aims to close the GPL's 'web services loophole.' The
AGPL adds a section to enforce sharing code that powers a web
service, so if you host a web service based on a modified
AGPL-licensed module, you have to guarantee your users the same
access to source code that the original module guaranteed its
users. Inhouse developers would often like to give back to open
source projects, whether or not compelled by a licence to do
so..."
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