From: Colin Steele Date: 2001-03-08T00:26:18+09:00 Subject: [ruby-talk:12235] SUMMARY: Licensing, Intellectual Property, and Ruby code Just to summarize back to the list the results of the discussion about Licensing, Intellectual Property, and Ruby code as it relates to the Ruby Cookbook: A) We are desirous of a situation in which code submitted to this site can be freely used, modified, evolved, distributed, and incorporated into software, whether commercial or free. B) Code and/or comments submitted to the site, therefore, must either be placed into the public domain, or licensed in such a way so as to satisfy A, above. Sites which have not addressed this issue have significant problems. (CPAN) C) Because of the "viral" aspect of the GPL, it is not an attractive candidate for the license. D) In addition to the license, submitters of code and/or comments must certify that they are submitting things that they believe are not be bound by previous copyrights or any other legal encumbrances (e.g. patents or trade secrets or other IP agreements). As a result, on the Ruby Cookbook site (www.rubycookbook.org), I have adopted a Terms of Service agreement to which one must agree during registration. (And you must register before you submit code or comments). This Terms of Service specifies that user-contributed content is free of legal encumbrances (section 6.f.), and that it is contributed under the terms of the X11 license. In addition, to drive the point home, on the code/comment submission page, it explicitly states that each contribution is made under the X11 license, and on each page showing code, there is a link to the license agreement. Thanks to everyone for their feedback and comments. -- Colin Steele CEO, WebG2 colin@webg2.com www.webg2.com Main: 804-971-4777 Fax: 804-220-4652