Open source license choice

Yes I know this has been beat to death, but there are licenses better
suited to different languages/platforms depending on the particular
community.

My project is open source but will also be a commercial venture.
Normally I use a bsd/mit style license, and I think that might fit
better into the ruby/rails community then GPL. In addition I’d like
to be able to easily include other ruby open source code that is very
often mit licensed. But from my understanding I won’t be able to
include any GPL code. If I used the GPL I could include mit/bsd
licensed code.

Another issue is there might be some parts of the code that have to
come with additional license terms. For instance third party api’s
that I implement have to be certified, and the third party might make
me enforce those same restrictions on anyone who modifies those parts
of the code. If using the mit/bsd license I could just put a module
or two under the more restrictive license without affecting everything
else, but I’m not sure how I would do that with the GPL. Could
possibly cause some conflicts.

Thoughts?

On 2/20/07, snacktime [email protected] wrote:

Thoughts?

Well get legal advice from a lawyer. That would be my first advice.

Mind you I do have some experience in this field - we had to do some
groundwork for our company on how we use open source software.

Everything hinges on when your code that uses code that has an
OSS-license becomes a derivative work, and whether becoming a
derived work means that your output is subject to the same license.

I wouldn’t mind some clarity in this case. A while ago your work
would become a derived work of a GPLed product if you statically
linked to it. Not sure how that works with GPLed dynamic languages.

Perhaps there’s a good resource that explains all of this for a coding
audience?