[Spread-users] Contributing to the Spread Toolkit

[Yair Amir]

Hi,

We have worked out a way to contribute to the Spread Toolkit without
creating copyright ownership issues.

I would like to present this way here for comments. I know that this
method works legally, but if there are better ideas, I have no problem
going with any other way that will achieve the same goals.

One goal is that Spread Concepts LLC will remain the sole copyright
holder of the Spread Toolkit without any restrictions. Another
goal is to provide protection for the contributor from liabilities.

Before I go into the details let me state that our philosophy behind
the Spread open source license was to create the most possible freedom
for interested people. This is exactly why we did not go the GPL way
but closer to the BSD way (with advertising / credit additions).
For those who have problems with the additional advertising clause - they 
can still get a different license from Spread Concepts LLC.

Therefore, if people make changes, they absolutely are not required
to make them public. Of course, they are not required to contribute them
back to the project.

Note that Spread Concepts LLC creates commercial products that
include Spread Toolkit code.

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Unless a better idea emerges, we will only include contributions
that will come attached to the following license (i.e. the file
a contributor sends will start with the following lines). People
can still propose changes the way they used to, but before a release
of a new version, we would ask them to release their contribution
in this manner:

Copyright (C) 2001 <Contributor name here>.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER BE LIABLE FOR
ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF
CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

<Your contributions>