[osflash] Commercial use of OSFlash projects?

[Mark Winterhalder]

On 9/10/06, Till Schneidereit <tschneidereit at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, I'm not too sure this has ever been really made clear for Flashplayer based projects at all.

I think we can be pretty sure it hasn't. The issue came up here a few
times and nobody pointed to anything relevant.

> Normally, with web based project you don't need to release any source above what the user gets in the form of html/ js code anyway because all of the real code just gets executed on the server. This is why google can use all of that gpl'd software without distributing their (quite extensive, from what I've heard) changes. Note that the new GPL V3 will be modified to adress this exact case.
> With Flashplayer based project, the situation is different, because quite a lot of the code is executed to the user an run on their machine. AFAIKT, this definitely is a binary distribution and would require the distributor to make the source available as well.
> So I think Mark is pretty on spot here, it would just be nice to have a website spelling out the exact terms of distribution of code/ binaries under a number of popular licenses as they pertain to Flash developers.

We could come up with a catalogue of questions and authors could give
their answers to them, sort of like a "signing statement", explaining
how they interpret the license they chose. Maybe there could be an
"OSFlash community interpretation" of common OS licenses, and authors
would provide the license as something like "This software is licensed
under the LGPL as interpreted on http://osflash.org/licenses".
Alternatively, CC-style "yes/no" licenses authors can assemble
themselves, but I guess we'd need a lawyer for that.
I'm not sure about the legal aspects of it if it would go to court,
but still believe it would help a great deal.

Anyway, here are some suggested questions regarding libraries,
specifically LGPL in otherwise closed code:

* Can I use the class(es)' API, provided I don't change their code?

* Do I have to keep the class(es) as a separate SWF and load it on runtime?

* Can I override methods of the API / extend the contained classes,
even if loaded as a separate SWF?

Mark