-- Christopher Allen - 2012-07-19 - via Facebook

Yes, the Creative Commons (CC) is great for text and photos! For my photos I use CC BY 3.0.

-- Peter Thoeny - 2012-07-20 - via Facebook

How do you handle things like contributor agreements? An open source license a team of people can typically agree on, but then when there is no standard for contributor agreements, they decide not to participate.

-- Christopher Allen - 2012-07-20 - via Facebook

On twiki.org we introduced a code of conduct in 2008, which acts as a contributor agreement. Everybody who wants to participate should adhere to the code of conduct. Initially we just had a mission statement defining the technical direction of the project - we learned that this was not enough to avoid conflicts among contributors. We introduced the code of conduct primarily to resolve conflicts, and as a result people who did not agree left the project in 2008.

-- Peter Thoeny - 2012-07-20 - via Facebook

Thank you for the article. But why would CentOS be ethically questionable, even if they provided no value whatsoever to RedHat? I think RedHat themselves would disagree with you.

The GPL includes the right to copy the code, and that includes the right to fork it, repackage it, keep updating from the upstream, etc. The free software philosophy that the GPL is based on strongly asserts that this freedom is a good thing. And RedHat makes use of this for most of the code they include in RHEL (some of which was developed by other commercial entities).

RedHat of course also writes their own code and adds it to the RHEL distribution. And they release this code under the GPL too. One reason is of course that this makes their user base happy in a way that a proprietary license would not. But another reason, it seems to me, is that they genuinely believe in the FOSS model as a way of building quality software. They seem perfectly happy that some of their additions get reused by competitors such as SUSE, while they get to do the same in return.

-- Albert Dvornik - 2012-07-28

Legally OK, but IMHO ethically questionable because CentOS does not (AFAIK) support the open source community upstream (Fedora/Red Hat). I believe open source is about taking and giving back. In TWiki's case, some companies using TWiki contribute(d) back upstream (such as Morgan Stanley, Motorola, Intel, Sun, Oracle, Alcatel), others don't (such as Yahoo, Google). Yes, nobody using GPLed software has to give back, but in spirit of open source it is good to feed the open source contributors; even if done in a self centered way to get a better product faster... So, does CentOS add value upstream? (I love Red Hat & CentOS, have used both.)

-- Peter Thoeny - 2012-07-30

What if I was a hosting company that sold VPS servers and support? As part of my support I install and configure RHEL for the customer. Ignore the part about RHEL not being free. I ask because I am involved in just this sort of situation and the difference is that the software I am redistributing is free. However they claim I am violating their trademark by installing their software. In their words I am "selling their software" which is incorrect. Their software is free open source GPL licensed. Even if I was selling their software that should not matter as long as I don't violate the trademark. Their trademarked free GPL licensed software runs on top of CentOS btw. In case that is a factor.

-- TWiki Guest - 2014-02-17

John Novack aka FredFlint, please do not register with a fake name, I removed your TWiki.org account.

An entity owning a trademark has to defend it, or it will potentially loose it. Infringement test is frequently done with a "confusingly similar" test. So check their trademark to see what is protected and what not. For example, a sausage company called Acme might have a registered trademark on the Acme brand to manufacture, trade and sell sausages. If you use the brand Acme for an accounting software you are not infringing on their brand - there is no similarity in sausages and accounting software. Now, if you want to host GPLed software you need to apply the same similarity test. To work around the registered trademark you might need to rebrand, as CentOS did. I am not a lawyer, so don't consider this legal advise.

-- Peter Thoeny - 2014-02-20