So far we got requests from the following companies for commercial, Non-GPLv3 Ruby Spreadsheet Licences:
For commercial NON-GPLv3 Licences please contact zdavatz at ywesee dot com.
Today we received an Email from AtomicObject regarding a free NON-GPLv3 licence for their Non-For-Profit Project SMEToolkit – that code is not OpenSource other code from AtomicObject obviously is OSS. After our first reaction of a flat denial to do so, we had some internal discussions and would be willing to provide AtomicObject with a licence for SMEToolkit under the following circumstances (and maybe more to come):
1. Where will we be credited for our work? Where in the Website and where in the source code? The term to mention would be “ywesee – the Ruby Spreadsheet” that of course would have to be linked i.e. to some new Blog entry on this Blog. Maybe even with this entry.
2. Where, in which countries, and on how many servers do you and will you run http://www.smetoolkit.org/smetoolkit/en?
3. What are the reasons why http://www.smetoolkit.org/ can not be licensed under GPLv3? We would like to state those reasons in the free license.
4. We could only grant our licence for this specific project. Other projects and clients of AtomicObject would not be allowed to use Ruby Spreadsheet under the possibly given licence.
5. We are willing to do this because we want you to see how easy it is to print a spreadsheet with our Software and of course because we want to sell additional licences to you 😉 for your other NON GPLv3 clients.
Lets see how this turns out.
This post comes on the back of http://rubyforge.org/forum/forum.php?thread_id=30389&forum_id=2919 where Larry Kluger is asking why we would use a licence like GPLv3 for the Ruby Spreadsheet. There are a few points noteworthy about this argument:
1. For a new project it does make sense to start with a GPLv3 Licence. Even Linus Torvalds would consider doing that. Spreadsheet is a totally new project started from 0.
2. Projects like OpenOffice.org or the Kernel are both HUGE projects in comparison to Spreadsheet. They come with thousands and millions of strings attached. These projects where started decades ago and at that time different licenses applied. They grew with the license that was doing it for them at the time they started.
3. In the 21st century Tivo, DRM and Patents play a much bigger role then they did in the 20th century.
4. GPLv3 is not perfect but it does make sense for a fresh project.
5. The author matters. Cut the developer some slack and give some code back to the community. If you do not want to do so, then just pay a small fee when somebody else does the coding for you.
Ruby Spreadsheet Licence Version 0.11
1. The purpose of this license is to allow XCompany.com the usage of the Ruby Spreadsheet Library by ywesee GmbH up to Version 1.0. The current version is 0.6.5.4. All versions of the Software can be found at http://scm.ywesee.com/?p=spreadsheet/.git;a=summary
2. The reason for this licence is that XCompany.com does not want to use Spreadsheet under GPLv3.
3. XCompany.com is allowed to use above software on two servers. XCompany.com is allowed to use the above software within their software for their purpose according to their User-Story. According to Name Surname the User-Story is “It would form part of an ‘export these records to …’ feature on our website and as such it would sit alongside export options to PDF, CSV, HTML etc. So it would be part of a service.”
4. XCompany.com is allowed to use Spreadsheet as noted under point three.
5. Except otherwise stated in this contract, XCompany.com is not allowed to resell, reuse or give away any version of above code under any other licence then the GPLv3.
6. XCompany.com will pay a onetime fee of EUR X for the usage of Spreadsheet up to Version 1.0. The fee is due once this contract has been agreed upon by both parties. The invoice will be sent to XCompany.com via Email.
7. ywesee GmbH will work towards fixing any bug submitted via http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?atid=2677&group_id=678&func=browse. Issues that are estimated to require more than 2 workdays to correct may be subject to a fee, which will be negotiated prior to the work.
8. The court of jurisdiction is Zürich, Switzerland.
Please note:Â If a bug occurs in Version 0.9999 to Version 1.0 and you or anybody else reports that bug, then we will fix it not matter what. If a bug occurs in Version 1.01 to Version 1.02 then of course we will have to renegotiate the terms of our contract and the price for Version 1.0 up to Version 2.0.
We will not “create” a bug in Version pre 1.0 and then ask for money for Version 1.0. Version 1.0 will include many bug and Feature improvements a long way from the current version (if you look at the current Version History you can see our track Record and we will not do a realese for “money makeing reasons”). So to cover our work we need to cover our expenses.
To see the Ruby Spreadsheet Track History, please see:
http://spreadsheet.rubyforge.org/files/History_txt.html
To see the Ruby Spreadsheet RoadMap, please see:
The Ruby Spreadsheet 