Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » Open Source Licensing: An enigma wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in legal fees

January 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Open Source Licensing: An enigma wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in legal fees

TAGS: Open Source

Back when we started MuleSource we had to make a decision on the license that we would use for open source distribution. Mule had originally been released under a modified-BSD license and for the most part worked very well. As part of the incorporation we went through an extremely exhaustive (and unbelievably painful) license review to ensure that all the code we shipped was legit. Unfortunately we had components that conflicted with BSD and portended a license change.

In order to remain open source but protect the MuleSource IP (that of Mule) we decided to use the MPL+attribution license that our friends at Alfresco, SugarCRM, Zimbra, SocialText and others had been using.

In retrospect we probably should have addressed the specifics of the attribution a bit earlier, but the truth is that very few people complained. Customers subscribe because they want the service, support and tools, not to remove the attribution requirement. Enterprises have always been able, and will continue to be able to run Mule in their environments for free with no attribution. Enterprises can make modifications and do whatever crazy things they want to the code without giving it back downstream. That's why we chose the MPL+.

One key thing that never really made sense to us about the MPL+ is that Mule is usually middleware and often doesn't have a GUI component. As such, the common attribution clause that expresses a demand for logo placement on every user interface screen caused much confusion. To that end we've decided to make changes that make more sense for where Mule lives in the stack and we hope will make the situation less cloudy.

As of today we are changing the attribution requirement to one that is much less obtrusive and far more coherent in relation to our product.

Do I expect people to still complain? Absolutely. For what it's worth, I don't dislike the attribution clause, but I am not sure that there is an ideal scenario. We're not comfortable with GPL right now but I think it's incredibly important that we protect our intellectual property and that we are able to build a business on all the hard work that has been done by Ross and our development team. Keep in mind that Mule was available under BSD for four years.

One thing I can tell you for sure is that Mule is open source, MuleSource is an open source company and interpretation is in the eye of the beholder. We believe that some kind of MPL+ should be adopted by OSI and hope to see it happen soon, but until then we believe that this change to our MSPL license clears the air for our users, the community and our customers.

The new Exhibit B, Part II in Legalese

Redistributions of the Covered Code in binary form or source code form, must ensure that the first time the resulting executable program is launched, a user interface, if any, shall include the attribution information set forth below prominently. If the executable program does not launch a user interface, the Company name and URL shall be included in the notice section of each file of the Covered Code. :

(a) MuleSource Inc.
(b) The MuleSource Logo Image (http://www.mulesource.com/MSPL/mulesource_license_logo.gif)
(c) http://www.mulesource.com


MuleSource Public License FAQs

If there is one thing about open source that I find truly aggravating and disappointing it's the catty discussions around licensing, attribution and the purity of your open-source-ness. It does nothing to increase adoption and in fact freaks people out who are new to the concept. I can only hope this is my last post ever on the topic.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on January 30, 2007 10:13 PM

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