We'd like to take an existing Linux base AMI, install our software on it, and make the modified AMI available publicly. What are the licensing implications of doing this? Our software is an open source bioinformatics tool, but does not use a GPL compatible license. I haven't been able to find any discussion of this in the Amazon documentation. They explain how to build a customized AMI from a public AMI, but no mention is made of any IP or licensing issues.
My concern is that the modified AMI would be a derived work, which I think would obligate us to license our software under a GPL compatible license.
Assuming you don't have any GPL code actually in your software, including it in the AMI would only require you to release your software under GPL if it was part of the terms specific to the AMI.
The part I am unsure about is if you would be required to supply the source code to all of the GPL software in the AMI, hopefully someone else can clarify this for you. The safest option would be to just release a package for the distribution and possibly a shell script to automatically install it and any necessary repositories.
Related
I use Reachability Swift cocoa pod in my project, which is completely free in use and distribute. Should I separately specify the license of the cocoa pod in Xcode, or is it done with the installation of the cocoa pod?
CocoaPods provides tools to review the license of pods, but nothing further with regards to managing or complying with licenses - that's up to you.
Without being an expert:
Apache2.0 and MIT licenses are non-restrictive. Apache 2.0 is inspired by MIT, but uses more stringent legal jargon.
The GNU license specifies that you redistribute the source code. This is tricky, as the app store provides no mechanism for this. Generally avoided for iOS apps.
Some licenses require attribution in your app's documentation.
To complicate things, there are numerous versions of the Reachability pod, all seem to be inspired by each other, and have different licenses.
Don't take this as legal advice, but probably nobody is looking or cares anyway.
I would like to build SaaS application (with free and not free tiers).
And I want to use one of the editors: ckeditor or tinymce.
I don't want to pay for it.
Can I legally use it?
Can I use it if I will make my client app (which using editor) - open source (MIT license)?
P.S.
CKeditor - GPL, LGPL, MPL
Tinymce - LGPL
From the CKEditor FAQ:
CKEditor is distributed under the GPL, LGPL and MPL Open Source licenses. >this triple copyleft licensing model is flexible and allows you to choose >the license that is best suited for your needs.
The GPL grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the free >software definition and uses copyleft to ensure the freedoms are preserved, >even when the work is changed or added to.
The LGPL places copyleft restrictions on the program governed under it but >does not apply these restrictions to other software that merely link with >the program. The main difference between the GPL and the LGPL is that the >latter allows the work to be linked with a non-(L)GPLed program, regardless >of whether it is free software or proprietary software.
The MPL allows covered source code to be mixed with other files under a >different, even proprietary license. However, code files licensed under the >MPL must remain under the MPL and be freely available in source form.
From the Tinymce FAQ:
Are there any restrictions to using TinyMCE in my commercial
application?
Yes, there are restrictions including the following. All
copyright notices must be intact as Moxiecode Systems are the
copyright owners of the source code. You cannot use the source code in
your applications without complying with the LGPL. According to the
provisions of the LGPL, any modifications or add-ons you make to the
source have to be released for the community's benefit. We recommend
that you always contribute your changes back to the TinyMCE community,
regardless of the situation. If you start to make a lot of revenue
from using TinyMCE, please remember the time and dedication that has
been put into this by other developers, respect this and give credit
to those who deserve it.
As long as you don't mess with the source code you are fine to use it for your use case (own tinymce plugins are no problem regarding this license).
If i were you i'd would go for Tinymce.
Does anyone know library to browse (and upload/download/stream) on smb shares (SMB/CIFS protocol) from iOS. This must be support for all the Windows OS. This is grade help for me.
Not quite an answer to your question, but I have some tips:
If you write your own client, don't trust the IETF RFC. Microsoft
hasn't been scrupulous in its adherence to the spec. And be sure to
test with Unicode file/folder names, all major versions of Windows,
and so on.
Don't write your own client. :-)
If you use an open-source library, make sure it's not GPL or LGPL,
unless you plan to open-source your entire project. LGPL almost
works—it does on Mac OS X—but it requires dynamic linking, which
isn't supported on iOS.
You may see apps in the app store that use GPL or LGPL libraries,
but don't assume that it is safe to use them yourself. Those apps
are often blatantly abusing the license.
opensource.apple.com has an smb client that's a great reference but
it's a file system kernel extension, so you can't use it directly.
Can I use google code prettify for commercial use. I see that Code license - Apache License 2.0. Do I need to have a copy of the Apache license?
Google Code Prettify is published under Apache License 2.0. Take a look to this FAQ. It allows you to use Apache software in packages or distributions that you create.
However you need to include a copy of license in any distribution of your software and show clear attribution to Google.
Google Code Prettify is distributed under Apache Licence 2.0.
This means that you are free to use it in a commercial application provided that you also include a copy of the Apache License with your application.
RELATED: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1007376/2081889
I used jdk8 to compile my java program to use some latest feature.
Can JRE 8 be shipped before final release ?
Looks like JRE 8 is not available standalone.So can I ship JDK8 before it it's final release
JRE8 and JDK8 are currently in Early Adopter version (EA). It's license terms follow: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/licenses/ea-license-152003.html
We grant You a revocable, nonexclusive, nontransferable, royalty-free and limited right to (a) use one (1) copy of the binary portions of the Programs and any Supplemental Programs for the sole purpose of internal non-production and non-commercial evaluation and testing of the Programs, including, developing no more than a single prototype of each of Your applications;
Now, of course, I'm no lawyer nor is this legal advice, but as this says, you can't ship a jre8 software (as that would include binary portions of jre8) to your production or commercial non-evaluation nor testing multiple non-prototypes of your application.
Additionally, you'd be subject to their Export Controls, found in the above address.
The GA is available as of March 18th:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html