Requesting feedback on new Ext.NET Community license

[geoffrey.mcgill]

We are finalizing the Ext.NET v1.0 release and are seeking community feedback regarding a change to the Ext.NET Community Edition end user license agreement (EULA). Our intention is to release the Ext.NET Community Edition v1.0 under the GNU AGPLv3 license. Previous builds were released under the GNU GPLv3 license.

The Free Software Foundation has recommended that the GNU AGPLv3 be considered for any software that will commonly be run over a network [such Web Applications].

The AGPLv3 license is a specialized version of GPLv3. An additional provision addressing use of the software over a computer network has been added.

The GPL/AGPL terms and conditions can be a little confusing, but our goal is to as clearly as possible define when the Community Edition or Professional Edition could be right for your application.

Our position and intention on what we feel the Community Edition should or should not be used for has not changed. The AGPL license just explicitly clarifies the terms and conditions which before were interpreted.

We feel the change to AGPL will further ensure the Community Edition and any modified versions will always remain available to the open-source community.

The Ext.NET Community Edition may be appropriate for your software if you:

1. Develop and distribute open-source AGPL 3.0 compatible software, or
2. Use the toolkit for personal testing, training, educational or demonstration purposes, or
3. Develop software for personal use, or
4. Develop software for use only within your organization (company, corporation, charity, etc). The software must not be accessible by any persons outside your organization.

The Ext.NET Community Edition may not be appropriate for your project if you:

1. Develop closed-source software which might be used, accessed, installed, purchased or obtained by persons from outside your organization or company.
2. Distribute or resell your software and do not want to provide the full client-side and server-side source code required to run and further develop open-source applications with your source-code.
3. Do not wish to use an open-source AGPL 3.0 License

This decision is not final, but we're obviously leaning heavily in this direction. Your feedback and comments are welcome.

Please feel free to contact me (geoff@object.net) directly if you prefer to discuss in private.

This license change does not affect the Professional Edition.

[geoffrey.mcgill]

I was doing a little research and found SugarCRM made the switch from GPLv3 to AGPLv3 for much the same reason.

http://developers.sugarcrm.com/wordp...3-for-sugar-6/

[geoffrey.mcgill]

In the following post I've created an image outlining how to decide on either Ext.NET Pro or Ext.NET Community license, see

http://forums.ext.net/showthread.php...r-your-project

Feedback is appreciated.

[r_honey]

Hey geoff, do you see any conflict in the following quote:

The Ext.NET Community Edition may be appropriate for your software if you:

1. Develop software for use only within your organization (company, corporation, charity, etc). The software must not be accessible by any persons outside your organization.

and you reply to this question:

Hello Geoff,
I am a little confused:confused: by the second diagram. If the application is an internal company application that will not be used by any external users, but the code is not open source, can one still use the communtiy license?

thanks,
Mike

I think the reply for Mike could well have been just "Yes, you can use it in this scenario", that would have helped many users clear up their doubts. I have seen people often wonder if they can use Community license for pure closed-source internal development.