Companies in dispute over their use of the Artistic Licence

Created by Stuart Yeates (University of Oxford) on May 5, 2006

newsforge.com is reporting that a pair of companies are in displute over their use of the open source Artistic Licence, widely used in the Perl world. It's a clear case of whoever drafted the contract for work between the two companies not understanding the licence being used.

This does not appear to be a challenge to the licence itself.

Stuart's blog
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What difference does it make

Submitted by Henry E. Schaffer (North Carolina State University) on May 6, 2006 - 6:41pm.

What difference does it make which Open Source license is involved, since the contract between the pair of companies was badly drafted in a way which would have had the same problem with any Open Source license applied to copyrighted software. By the way, the cited article has been corrected to say that the license involved is the Academic Free License (AFL), not the Artistic License.

Specifically the contract seems to say in one section that if A delivers modified Open Source code to B that B will "have all rights of ownership in the developed software" - which directly conflicts with the copyright owner's ownership.

In another section the contract seems to say that the Open Source license still applies to the software.

Confusing, and I agree with Stuart that the contract lawyers/writers/reviewers on both sides didn't seem to understand Open Source licensing.

		Companies in dispute over their use of the Artistic Licence Created by Stuart Yeates (University of Oxford) on May 5, 2006 newsforge.com is reporting that a pair of companies are in displute over their use of the open source Artistic Licence, widely used in the Perl world. It's a clear case of whoever drafted the contract for work between the two companies not understanding the licence being used. This does not appear to be a challenge to the licence itself. Intellectual Property \| intellectual property rights \| Licensing \| Licensing Policies \| Open Source \| Perl \| Software Licensing Stuart's blog Login or register to post comments 4015 reads What difference does it make Submitted by Henry E. Schaffer (North Carolina State University) on May 6, 2006 - 6:41pm. What difference does it make which Open Source license is involved, since the contract between the pair of companies was badly drafted in a way which would have had the same problem with any Open Source license applied to copyrighted software. By the way, the cited article has been corrected to say that the license involved is the Academic Free License (AFL), not the Artistic License. Specifically the contract seems to say in one section that if A delivers modified Open Source code to B that B will "have all rights of ownership in the developed software" - which directly conflicts with the copyright owner's ownership. In another section the contract seems to say that the Open Source license still applies to the software. Confusing, and I agree with Stuart that the contract lawyers/writers/reviewers on both sides didn't seem to understand Open Source licensing. Login or register to post comments
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