> 
> Please Note: I am not a lawyer, so this may all be lies :)
> 
i'll throw up a similar disclaimer to wayne - i'm no lawyer, and the 
general consensus from what i've been reading is that before making any 
final licensing decisions, you ought to talk to a real one about the 
implications. =/

first, a note about what wayne said:
>
> Note that the GPL does not allow you to add extra restrictions such as "you
> cannot use this for military applications or gene research", or anything
> else.
> 
this is a somewhat misleading statement.  yes, if you release code under 
the GPL, you cannot add any extra restrictions, but you _can_ release your 
code under a different license (call it the ARToolkit License, or ARTL), 
which essentially boils down to the GPL plus your special restrictions.  
doing something like this is difficult in a legal sense, but possible.

moving on...a little poking around on google groups, and i found a thread 
from four years ago by a programmer facing a nearly identical issue.  
reading through it has been very illuminating.  the thread is at

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=76m505%24npc%241%40nntp.ucs.ubc.ca&rnum=8&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dnon-commercial%2Bonly%2BGPL%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D76m505%2524npc%25241%2540nntp.ucs.ubc.ca%26rnum%3D8

a particularly helpful post is at

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=slrn78tblj.f5h.bem%40thorin.cmc.net&rnum=23

the basic premise put forth here is to release your code under the GPL,
straight up.  commercial use is automatically discouraged, because
programs written commercially will also become GPL, and so must be made
available publicly (and therefore, cannot be sold for profit).  for
ARToolkit as a library, this seems sufficient.  however, given the trend
of the toolkit to become more of a content authoring tool rather than a
programming library, a GPL authoring tool can be used to author content
without restriction.  for example, people who use the GIMP to make images
are not restricted by the GPL.  this would be _bad_ for the ARToolkit, as
commercial use of the authoring tool would be a-okay (assuming the
authoring functionality was sufficient for the commercial interests).

just to reiterate, releasing the toolkit under the GPL doesn't keep you 
from negotiating other licenses under different terms, so it could still 
be sold under free-use licenses to parties interested in developing 
commercial software with it.  the question is just if these companies will 
be motivated to buy it rather than use the freely available version.

the other problem that comes up with contributions.  you can release the 
ARToolkit version 3.0 (just for kicks) under the GPL.  then, say someone 
from this list contributes a patch to version 3.1.  any new licensing of 
version 3.1 now must involve both yourself and the other contributor, 
since their contribution was released under the GPL as well.  of course, 
you can still negotiate licenses for version 3.0.

the suggestion made in the thread i cited above is to add a clause that 
contributions be submitted under a non-exclusive free-use license to you, 
for inclusion into the toolkit to be sold later.  and as mentioned in the 
thread, this creates a sticky situation, because you need to be _sure_ the 
contributor actually _can_ assign the rights of their contribution to you 
(if the contributor worked for a company and had already signed their 
software rights to that company, they wouldn't actually be able to give 
you the contribution).  i'm not really sure how to get around his 
potential problem.

-steve

> 
> the other problem that comes up with contributions.  you can release the 
> ARToolkit version 3.0 (just for kicks) under the GPL.  then, say someone 
> from this list contributes a patch to version 3.1.  any new licensing of 
> version 3.1 now must involve both yourself and the other contributor, 
> since their contribution was released under the GPL as well.  of course, 
> you can still negotiate licenses for version 3.0.
> 
> the suggestion made in the thread i cited above is to add a clause that 
> contributions be submitted under a non-exclusive free-use license to you, 
> for inclusion into the toolkit to be sold later.  and as mentioned in the 
> thread, this creates a sticky situation, because you need to be _sure_ the 
> contributor actually _can_ assign the rights of their contribution to you 
> (if the contributor worked for a company and had already signed their 
> software rights to that company, they wouldn't actually be able to give 
> you the contribution).  i'm not really sure how to get around his 
> potential problem.
> 
oops, forgot to mention, the suggestion i've seen made is to use the 
Mozilla Public License, which apparently has clauses addressing this issue 
(that contributions become the property of the original author).  the MPL 
can be found here

http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/

also, here's a GNU site discussing various licenses and their interesting 
points

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html


-steve

Hi Mark,
Have you looked at Creative Commons licensing?
I do not know if it would be appropriate for artoolkit, but it would be
worth while to check out=2E

http://creativecommons=2Eorg/

-Topher

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Wayne Piekarski wayne@c .=2Eunisa=2Eedu=2Eau
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 18:20:33 +1030
To: grof@h ...=2Ewashington=2Eedu, artoolkit@h ...=2Ewashington=2Eedu
Subject: RE: ARToolkit License



> I wrote that when I was naiive about the ways of the open source licesin=
g
> world=2E Perhaps you can help advise what would be the most appropriate
> license=2E Basically what we want to do was to make ARToolKit available =
free
> for people developing academic or non-commercial applications=2E
>=20
> >
>=20
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=
++
> +++++
> Mark Billinghurst =09=09| Human Interface Technology Laboratory
> grof@h ...=2Ewashington=2Eedu=09| University of Washington, Box 352-142
> fax: +1-206-543-5380=09=09| Seattle, WA 98195


--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web=2Ecom/ =2E

Hi Wayne (and everyone else),

I wrote that when I was naiive about the ways of the open source licesing
world. Perhaps you can help advise what would be the most appropriate
license. Basically what we want to do was to make ARToolKit available free
for people developing academic or non-commercial applications.

However we also wanted to be able to charge a royalty to those who are
building commercial applications and release then from the GPL requirement
to make the soure of ARToolKit (and potentially part of their application)
available. We'd like to use this revenue stream to provide support back to
the ARToolKit community. We felt it was fair enough to charge people who
were making money off ARToolKit.

So the intent was that for non-commercial projects a GPL license was to be
used, and for commercial projects people should negotiate with us to get
a closed source version of the libraries that isn't under GPL.

However, perhaps this isn't the right way to go. If you have an idea of a
more approrpiate licensing model let me know. I'm still learning my way
around all the possibilities.

Cheers,
	Mark

 On Mon, 1 Dec 2003, Wayne Piekarski wrote:

> Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 17:01:29 +1030
> From: Wayne Piekarski <wayne@c ..............>
> To: 'artoolkit' <artoolkit@h ..................>
> Subject: ARToolkit License
>
> Hi,
>
> I was looking at the ARToolkit web site and it mentions that the source code
> is licensed under the GPL, but "for non-commercial purposes only" was added
> at the end. My understanding is that the GPL does not permit any extra
> restrictions such as this to be added to its terms, and so as long as you
> distribute the source code according to the GPL with any applications you
> can sell it or do whatever you want right?
>
> I was going to be giving a talk about 3D graphics under Linux next year and
> I wanted to use ARToolkit as one example for people to look at, but they
> require that any software must be under an approved OSI license such as GPL,
> and wanted to check this is the case.
>
> Thanks,
> Wayne
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Wayne Piekarski - Researcher / Lecturer          pho:        +61-8-8302-3669
>                                                  fax:        +61-8-8302-3381
> Assistant Director - Wearable Computer Lab       mob:        +61-407-395-889
> School of Computer and Information Science       ema:  wayne@c ..............
> University of South Australia                    www: http://www.tinmith.net
>
>
>

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mark Billinghurst 		| Human Interface Technology Laboratory
grof@h ..................	| University of Washington, Box 352-142
fax: +1-206-543-5380		| Seattle, WA 98195

Hi Mark and Wayne,

from a companys point of view i could live with a GPL and commercial license
mix as Trolltech does it with Qt.
I'd also like to encourage to think about a LGPL model like the
OpenSceneGraph (www.openscenegraph.org) or the ACE_wrapper
(http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE.html)  groups are doin it.
These guys are developing their libs under LGPL which means you may use the
library even commercially but you have to contribute any changes to the lib
free of charge. They earn money with selling consulting services and
distributions (for ACE see www.riverace.com) . From my observation the
willingness to contribute source to the lib is better with LGPL libs
(compare openscengraph and direct contributions for qt for example) .  I
also think its less hazzle for the core developers since they dont have to
maintain seperate source trees for commercial and GPL version code.
An additional way to generate cash for the development is to have a steering
commitee into which companies can buy in (with a yearly fee, the opensg
consortium is doing that for example http://www.opensg.org/index.EN.html) to
have the ability to influence the development of the lib.
So that have been my two cents about that, what do u think about it ?

Greetings,

Michael

Michael T. Wagner
shared-reality.com




I----- Original Message -----
From: "Wayne Piekarski" <wayne@c ..............>
To: "'Mark Billinghurst'" <grof@h ..................>
Cc: "'artoolkit'" <artoolkit@h ..................>
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 8:50 AM
Subject: RE: ARToolkit License


> Hi Mark,
>
> > I wrote that when I was naiive about the ways of the open source
licesing
> > world. Perhaps you can help advise what would be the most appropriate
> > license. Basically what we want to do was to make ARToolKit available
free
> > for people developing academic or non-commercial applications.
> >
> > However we also wanted to be able to charge a royalty to those who are
> > building commercial applications and release then from the GPL
requirement
> > to make the soure of ARToolKit (and potentially part of their
application)
> > available. We'd like to use this revenue stream to provide support back
to
> > the ARToolKit community. We felt it was fair enough to charge people who
> > were making money off ARToolKit.
> >
> > So the intent was that for non-commercial projects a GPL license was to
be
> > used, and for commercial projects people should negotiate with us to get
> > a closed source version of the libraries that isn't under GPL.
> >
> > However, perhaps this isn't the right way to go. If you have an idea of
a
> > more approrpiate licensing model let me know. I'm still learning my way
> > around all the possibilities.
>
> Please Note: I am not a lawyer, so this may all be lies :)
>
> The GPL allows anyone to take the source code for an application, and
modify
> it in any way that they wish. If you decide to distribute an application
to
> others, you may charge money for it or give it away for free, but you
*must*
> include the source code for everything you distribute. Others are then
free
> to do whatever they want with the sources, including giving it away to
> others.
>
> Note that the GPL does not allow you to add extra restrictions such as
"you
> cannot use this for military applications or gene research", or anything
> else. Other licenses have been written to allow this but it has to be
worded
> carefully to have any effect.
>
> Although it doesn't say anything about it, the GPL protects you in many
ways
> from people trying to commercialise my code. Lets say I decide to sell
> simpleTest on a CD for $1000 as a commercial venture. So one person comes
> along and buys it, but once they have the CD I also have to give them the
> source code. They can also then upload the CD onto a web site and give it
> away for free. So you can get away with selling it once, but you can't
stop
> them from giving it away to all their friends. So if you are serious about
> commercialisation and selling many units then you need to have another
> license because otherwise people can legally pirate your software once one
> person has bought it. However, the GPL still does allow me to take the
> ARToolkit source code and sell it once off and make $1000. So you can't
stop
> all commercial ventures using the GPL license, but it will stop people who
> want to sell lots of copies. For example, I could use ARToolkit as part of
a
> large research contract worth millions of dollars because I only have to
> deliver one CD at the end of it. The millions of dollars is paying for the
> CD, not the source code though. Another interesting angle is that if
someone
> distributes an application that links against ARToolkit headers and so
> forth, the rest of their application is "infected" and becomes GPL as
well,
> even if the application has a license saying otherwise. You cannot give
out
> an application linked against ARToolkit unless you are willing to have it
> fall under GPL as well. If you keep it to yourself and don't distribute it
> though you can do whatever you want.
>
> Since you are the copyright holder to the code, you can license the code
> under different licenses to different people. So the code on the web is
GPL,
> but for a fee you can license the same code to someone else under any
> license you like. The paid license can be something like "you can embed
this
> into your applications and charge whatever you want, with no source code
> distribution required, and pay HIT Lab 5% royalties", or a flat fee, or
> whatever. This paid license version cannot be distributed if this is what
> you stipulate in the code. Because you own the code you are allowed to do
> this, but I for example cannot because I don't own any copyright on it.
>
> Many companies have licensed their code under GPL but still sell a
> commercial version for people who want to embed it into their applications
> without having to distribute source code. Libraries such as Qt is GPL'd
and
> used in KDE Desktop under Linux, but can also be purchased with royalty
free
> distribution for a development fee of something like $1000. So the company
> releasing Qt gets to get the free community to help bug fix and so forth,
> and they get to sell a toolkit that is much more widely used and tested.
>
> So this is my understanding of how this works. Assuming you are happy with
> the commercialisation examples I mentioned above then the GPL should cover
> your interests. From a user's (such as myself) point of view, the GPL is
> great because it allows us to use it unrestricted in our applications
unless
> we start distributing or selling them, which is not really what most of us
> are interested in doing anyway.
>
> Regards,
> Wayne
>
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Mark
> >
> >  On Mon, 1 Dec 2003, Wayne Piekarski wrote:
> >
> > > Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 17:01:29 +1030
> > > From: Wayne Piekarski <wayne@c ..............>
> > > To: 'artoolkit' <artoolkit@h ..................>
> > > Subject: ARToolkit License
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I was looking at the ARToolkit web site and it mentions that the
source
> > code
> > > is licensed under the GPL, but "for non-commercial purposes only" was
> > added
> > > at the end. My understanding is that the GPL does not permit any extra
> > > restrictions such as this to be added to its terms, and so as long as
> > you
> > > distribute the source code according to the GPL with any applications
> > you
> > > can sell it or do whatever you want right?
> > >
> > > I was going to be giving a talk about 3D graphics under Linux next
year
> > and
> > > I wanted to use ARToolkit as one example for people to look at, but
they
> > > require that any software must be under an approved OSI license such
as
> > GPL,
> > > and wanted to check this is the case.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Wayne
> > >
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ----
> > > Wayne Piekarski - Researcher / Lecturer          pho:
+61-8-8302-
> > 3669
> > >                                                  fax:
+61-8-8302-
> > 3381
> > > Assistant Director - Wearable Computer Lab       mob:        +61-407-
> > 395-889
> > > School of Computer and Information Science       ema:
> > wayne@c ..............
> > > University of South Australia                    www:
> > http://www.tinmith.net
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> > +++++
> > Mark Billinghurst | Human Interface Technology Laboratory
> > grof@h .................. | University of Washington, Box 352-142
> > fax: +1-206-543-5380 | Seattle, WA 98195
>

Hi,

I was looking at the ARToolkit web site and it mentions that the source code
is licensed under the GPL, but "for non-commercial purposes only" was added
at the end. My understanding is that the GPL does not permit any extra
restrictions such as this to be added to its terms, and so as long as you
distribute the source code according to the GPL with any applications you
can sell it or do whatever you want right?

I was going to be giving a talk about 3D graphics under Linux next year and
I wanted to use ARToolkit as one example for people to look at, but they
require that any software must be under an approved OSI license such as GPL,
and wanted to check this is the case.

Thanks,
Wayne

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wayne Piekarski - Researcher / Lecturer          pho:        +61-8-8302-3669
                                                 fax:        +61-8-8302-3381
Assistant Director - Wearable Computer Lab       mob:        +61-407-395-889
School of Computer and Information Science       ema:  wayne@c ..............
University of South Australia                    www: http://www.tinmith.net

Hi Mark,

> I wrote that when I was naiive about the ways of the open source licesing
> world. Perhaps you can help advise what would be the most appropriate
> license. Basically what we want to do was to make ARToolKit available free
> for people developing academic or non-commercial applications.
> 
> However we also wanted to be able to charge a royalty to those who are
> building commercial applications and release then from the GPL requirement
> to make the soure of ARToolKit (and potentially part of their application)
> available. We'd like to use this revenue stream to provide support back to
> the ARToolKit community. We felt it was fair enough to charge people who
> were making money off ARToolKit.
> 
> So the intent was that for non-commercial projects a GPL license was to be
> used, and for commercial projects people should negotiate with us to get
> a closed source version of the libraries that isn't under GPL.
> 
> However, perhaps this isn't the right way to go. If you have an idea of a
> more approrpiate licensing model let me know. I'm still learning my way
> around all the possibilities.

Please Note: I am not a lawyer, so this may all be lies :)

The GPL allows anyone to take the source code for an application, and modify
it in any way that they wish. If you decide to distribute an application to
others, you may charge money for it or give it away for free, but you *must*
include the source code for everything you distribute. Others are then free
to do whatever they want with the sources, including giving it away to
others.

Note that the GPL does not allow you to add extra restrictions such as "you
cannot use this for military applications or gene research", or anything
else. Other licenses have been written to allow this but it has to be worded
carefully to have any effect.

Although it doesn't say anything about it, the GPL protects you in many ways
from people trying to commercialise my code. Lets say I decide to sell
simpleTest on a CD for $1000 as a commercial venture. So one person comes
along and buys it, but once they have the CD I also have to give them the
source code. They can also then upload the CD onto a web site and give it
away for free. So you can get away with selling it once, but you can't stop
them from giving it away to all their friends. So if you are serious about
commercialisation and selling many units then you need to have another
license because otherwise people can legally pirate your software once one
person has bought it. However, the GPL still does allow me to take the
ARToolkit source code and sell it once off and make $1000. So you can't stop
all commercial ventures using the GPL license, but it will stop people who
want to sell lots of copies. For example, I could use ARToolkit as part of a
large research contract worth millions of dollars because I only have to
deliver one CD at the end of it. The millions of dollars is paying for the
CD, not the source code though. Another interesting angle is that if someone
distributes an application that links against ARToolkit headers and so
forth, the rest of their application is "infected" and becomes GPL as well,
even if the application has a license saying otherwise. You cannot give out
an application linked against ARToolkit unless you are willing to have it
fall under GPL as well. If you keep it to yourself and don't distribute it
though you can do whatever you want.

Since you are the copyright holder to the code, you can license the code
under different licenses to different people. So the code on the web is GPL,
but for a fee you can license the same code to someone else under any
license you like. The paid license can be something like "you can embed this
into your applications and charge whatever you want, with no source code
distribution required, and pay HIT Lab 5% royalties", or a flat fee, or
whatever. This paid license version cannot be distributed if this is what
you stipulate in the code. Because you own the code you are allowed to do
this, but I for example cannot because I don't own any copyright on it.

Many companies have licensed their code under GPL but still sell a
commercial version for people who want to embed it into their applications
without having to distribute source code. Libraries such as Qt is GPL'd and
used in KDE Desktop under Linux, but can also be purchased with royalty free
distribution for a development fee of something like $1000. So the company
releasing Qt gets to get the free community to help bug fix and so forth,
and they get to sell a toolkit that is much more widely used and tested.

So this is my understanding of how this works. Assuming you are happy with
the commercialisation examples I mentioned above then the GPL should cover
your interests. From a user's (such as myself) point of view, the GPL is
great because it allows us to use it unrestricted in our applications unless
we start distributing or selling them, which is not really what most of us
are interested in doing anyway.

Regards,
Wayne

> 
> Cheers,
> 	Mark
> 
>  On Mon, 1 Dec 2003, Wayne Piekarski wrote:
> 
> > Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 17:01:29 +1030
> > From: Wayne Piekarski <wayne@c ..............>
> > To: 'artoolkit' <artoolkit@h ..................>
> > Subject: ARToolkit License
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I was looking at the ARToolkit web site and it mentions that the source
> code
> > is licensed under the GPL, but "for non-commercial purposes only" was
> added
> > at the end. My understanding is that the GPL does not permit any extra
> > restrictions such as this to be added to its terms, and so as long as
> you
> > distribute the source code according to the GPL with any applications
> you
> > can sell it or do whatever you want right?
> >
> > I was going to be giving a talk about 3D graphics under Linux next year
> and
> > I wanted to use ARToolkit as one example for people to look at, but they
> > require that any software must be under an approved OSI license such as
> GPL,
> > and wanted to check this is the case.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Wayne
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
> > Wayne Piekarski - Researcher / Lecturer          pho:        +61-8-8302-
> 3669
> >                                                  fax:        +61-8-8302-
> 3381
> > Assistant Director - Wearable Computer Lab       mob:        +61-407-
> 395-889
> > School of Computer and Information Science       ema:
> wayne@c ..............
> > University of South Australia                    www:
> http://www.tinmith.net
> >
> >
> >
> 
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> +++++
> Mark Billinghurst 		| Human Interface Technology Laboratory
> grof@h ..................	| University of Washington, Box 352-142
> fax: +1-206-543-5380		| Seattle, WA 98195