Some of our perspective competitors who claim to be open source have submitted a so-called attribution license to OSI that ironically does the opposite of the terms that JBoss/Red Hat have joined their users and customers (to remove logos before distributing derivatives -- which kinda makes sense). Rather than prohibit you from using these organizations' trademarks in your software, it requires them! Generally these are Mozilla Public License derivatives (very similar to the LGPL) with an additional clause like this:

This License does not grant any rights to use the trademarks "WhizbangAppCompany" and the "WhizbangAppCompany" logos even if such marks are included in the Original Code or Modifications.

However, in addition to the other notice obligations, all copies of the Covered Code in Executable and Source Code form distributed must, as a form of attribution of the original author, include on each user interface screen (i) the "WhizbangAppCompany Community" logo, (ii) the vendor disclaimer "Supplied free of charge with no support, no certification, no maintenance, no warranty and no indemnity by WhizbangAppCompany or its certified partners. Click here for support. And certified Versions" and (iii) the copyright notice in the same form as the latest version of the Covered Code distributed by WhizbangAppCompany at the time of distribution of such copy. In addition, the "WhizbangAppCompany Community" logo and vendor disclaimer must be visible to all users and be located at the very bottom left of each user interface screen. Notwithstanding the above, the dimensions of the "WhizbangAppCompany Community" logo must be at least 176 x 26 pixels. When users click on the "WhizbangAppCompany Community" logo it must direct them back to http://www.whizbangappcompany.com. When users click on the vendor disclaimer it must direct them to http://www.whizbangappcompany.com In addition, the copyright notice must remain visible to all users at all times at the bottom of the user interface screen. When users click on the copyright notice, it must direct them back to http://www.whizbangappcompany.com.

The idea for these vendors is that they can protect their "Web 2.0" whiz-bangs with logo attribution. Meaning the only way I can use CompanyX's webmail widgets in my webmail is to advertise for them. Attribution is nothing new. The earlier BSD license derivatives such as Apache Software License 1.1 required a textual form of attribution. this new form of "attribution" goes way beyond that. Now you have to link there and make sure its visible WHERE THEY want it WHEN THEY want it at all times! Frankly "attribution" in this context is a coined phrase like "death tax" or "marriage penalty". We're really asking for.... advertising. Of course this would probably be far more controversial if phrased that way.

Well this is Buni's Meldware Webmail as it appears today:

Granted we have a bit of catch up to do, but we are progressing at a much faster rate than our perspective competitors. Very shortly I imagine someone will find a way to taper it onto a different back-end (actually I hope we offer a stand-alone version eventually). At that time we could write a license that said this:

This License does not grant any rights to use the trademarks "WhizbangAppCompany" and the "WhizbangAppCompany" logos even if such marks are included in the Original Code or Modifications.

However, in addition to the other notice obligations, all copies of the Covered Code in Executable and Source Code form distributed must, as a form of advertisment of the original author, include on each user interface screen (i) the "WhizbangAppCompany Community" logo, (ii) the vendor disclaimer "Supplied free of charge with no support, no certification, no maintenance, no warranty and no indemnity by WhizbangAppCompany or its certified partners. Click here for support. And certified Versions" and (iii) the copyright notice in the same form as the latest version of the Covered Code distributed by WhizbangAppCompany at the time of distribution of such copy. In addition, the "WhizbangAppCompany Community" modal, non-resizable but user-movable dialog and vendor disclaimer must be visible to all users and appear in the center of each user interface screen. Notwithstanding the above, the dimensions of the "WhizbangAppCompany Community" modal, non-resizable, but user-movable dialog must be at least 395 x 240 pixels. When users click on the "WhizbangAppCompany Community" logo it must direct them back to http://www.whizbangappcompany.com. When users click on the vendor disclaimer it must direct them to http://www.whizbangappcompany.com In addition, the copyright notice must remain visible to all users at all times at the bottom of the user interface screen. When users click on the copyright notice, it must direct them back to http://www.whizbangappcompany.com.

In short, competitive offerings could embed our webmail and keep our big fat dialog up at all times. The user could not resize or close it, but COULD move it around. Therefore, competitive offering which used our webmail would look like this:

Though we would of course allow them to remove the upper right-hand logo. We'd of course allow folks who bought a special SuperGoodVersion license to remove our dialog.

I'm fairly certain that when OSI comes out of their secret closed-door meeting about open source, that they will come out with an "attribution" license and license-discuss will have some strong dissent before OSI approves it. That being said, as I have already expressed my reservations about OSI's role in defining open source as strictly about license rather then about anything actually resembling the transparency that made open source great, I also am concerned that once they approve this -- and they will -- that their role as license list maintainer will also be compromised. I have some serious reservations as to whether the outcome is really open source if it has major constraints on actually modifying the code other than reciprocation.

Ultimately, we have to ask "what is the benefit and differentiator that makes open source better?". "What makes an open source company an open source company?" As I mentioned, I think it is ultimately who is "under the gun". Is it the customer "upgrade or we cut off your patches and you get hacked" or the developer (if you don't stay ahead we can fork or someone else will)! Buni Lunis love stress, almost as much as we love guns! We shock our hosts by leaving an expensive paid for dinner early to go fix some bugs for a demo the night before (we could demo the stable version but then you'd miss the newest coolest parts!). I know moving the gun back to the customer's head and giving ourself a nice cozy software licensing business and a closed off community is not really a Buni value, is it really an open source value?

Wow, that was a lot of traffic yesterday. We also had quite a few downloads, a lot of well wishing emails and not a lot of sleep :-). In short, I think the Buni.org community site launch was a pretty good start. I was kinda surprised by the level of traffic we got right near the holidays, but also the pedestrian nature of the traffic (what no flames?). Stats say that you took the time to look around and a good percentage of you ended up taking Meldware for a spin. However stats only tell part of the story. I'd like to hear from you and know more. Please take a look at a couple polls I posted in the forums. I'd really like to read your more specific feedback as well!

Thanks

-Andy