Maybe access to the source of in-house modifications should be a requirement for being a listed vendor on the site? We may not be able to alter the terms of the GPL, but we can decide the terms of koha.org ( assuming we have and will have that much control over it ). I would expect that we would have to grandfather all current vendors though. Kyle http://www.kylehall.info Information Technology Crawford County Federated Library System ( http://www.ccfls.org ) On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 1:35 PM, MJ Ray <mjr@phonecoop.coop> wrote:
Nicolas Morin <nicolas.morin@biblibre.com>
[...] we at BibLibre posted an article on our web site about this issue: http://www.biblibre.com/content/liblime-koha-biblibre-and-floss
Amongst other things, that says:
"BibLibre decided we needed to modify our standard hosting contract to close the GPL loophole used by LibLime: in our future contracts, and when the current contracts are renewed, an extra article is added to the contract which specifies that even though the software is hosted, the library has access to the source code, GPLed."
I'm surprised because software.coop's usual contract terms have said that we "grant permission to the Buyer to use, copy, modify, adapt or enhance the material supplied in the performance of the Services, so far as [the co-op] is permitted to grant that permission" since at least 2006 and probably before (I'd need to check paper files to be sure).
For Koha, that means you get a copy under the GPL, basically.
What with all the flaming of LibLime for hosting lock-in, I didn't expect that other Koha vendors weren't making at least that promise already. So - would the other vendors like to state their current contract permissions? Anyone else want to follow the co-op and BibLibre and make this promise to your buyers?
Also, I'd like to know whether anyone else's hosting-source-access clause forbids evil tricks like public key encryption? Offering access alone isn't sufficient. Also, what about the data?
Thanks, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster and LMS developer at | software www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk | .... co IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html | .... op
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