Re: [OSCOM] ANN: Magnolia 3.0 Simple Enterprise Content Management released

Martin Bähr wrote:
> http://www.magnolia.info/en/magnolia/products/faq.html#IsthesourcecodefortheEnterpriseEd
>   Is the source code for the Enterprise Edition available?
> 
>   Most of the code of the Enterprise Edition is open-sourced and available
>   in the Community Edition. The Enterprise Edition ships with additional
>   features not found in the Community Edition and is licensed via the
>   "Magnolia Visible Source" license. The visible-source license allows you
>   to modify the Enterprise Edition for your own use, but disallows
>   distribution or deployment of the binary.
> 
> this violates free redistribution, and hence this license is not
> free software nor open source.

I disagree that this means the software is not open source. We can argue
the semantics of the term "open source" all day, but a definition does
not hold up in court if it is ever challenged. Every person or
organization can come up with their own definition of open source, but
that doesn't give it any legal weight. What does hold up in court is the
license the software is released under. Let's be clear. There are many
open source licenses available, including a developer's own license (as
it appears in the case of this software).

In the end, a developer should consult a lawyer before opening up their
source code and an end-user should consult one as well if they are
worried about the future repercussions of using the software and if they
are unclear on what they can and cannot do with it.

Back to the original point:
>   Most of the code of the Enterprise Edition is open-sourced

As an open source CMS, it is perfectly valid to post an announcement on
the list. Unless the list is only for "CMSes that are free, open source
(by XYZ's definition), allow for redistribution and are released under
the XYZ license". We'll need a bigger acronym than OSCOM for that
though. (and don't get me started on how tough it will be to reach a
consensus on the definition of "XYZ") ;)

Regards,

Michelle