Gizmo redistribution hassle?

shastry · 2006-10-25 15:03:44

I found gizmo to be a nice voip software. So I thought about packaging and putting it in community. But this licensing thing seems to annoy me.
http://www.gizmoproject.com/gizmo-end-user.html says redistribution is not allowed.
So I mail them with a request for distribution.. and here is what I get from their legal department:

If you would like to package and redistribute Gizmo Project, we will
need you to read and sign the attached document and then fax it to the
following number: *removed*

Please see http://shastry.one09.net/files/tmp/gizmo-agreement.doc

Anyone have any thoughts on this? do I sign the agreement? or do I need some senior arch dev to do this for me? or just forget packaging and let the users figure it out or create a PKGBUILD and put it in unsupported?

I also wonder about skype licensing... is it free to redistribute? has anyone verified?

(PS: Please don't complain about the document format. That is how they gave it to me and you cant change the fact)

Snowman · 2006-10-27 00:01:10

If you sign the agreement, you'll still be legally responsible for the package if it gets included in extra or if you quit using Arch. You probably don't want this. I would believe that Judd should be the best person to sign it (I haven't read it though). You should ask this on the TUR ML to get a better response. Maybe one of the TU/Dev will have a better suggestion or will bring it on the dev ML.

djscholl · 2006-10-27 02:45:22

I am not a lawyer, so this is business advice, not legal advice, and (of course) worth every penny that you paid for it.

The agreement can be read with OpenOffice, so no document format rant. This document is an agreement with SIPphone, explicitly meant to be signed on behalf of a corporation. The corporation entering into this agreement agrees to

license and distribute SIPphone's proprietary software.

The corporation also agrees to

use commercially reasonable efforts to successfully market, promote and distribute such SIPphone Product on a continuing basis...

As far as I know, Arch Linux is not a corporation. To the extent that Arch Linux has a business model, I would be truly surprised if it turned out to harmonize with the marketing and promotion of proprietary software. The Arch Linux donation page seems to me to be incompatible with "commercially reasonable efforts to sucessfully market". Therefore, I don't expect that any of the devs will be interested in such an agreement. I also don't expect that SIPphone would find Arch Linux to be the type of business development partner they are looking for.

Even putting the package into unsupported seems somewhat problematic to me. The end user software is made available under a proprietary click-thru license, not under any Open-Source license. I know there are proprietary programs in the AUR, but I am not aware of automated support for click-thru licenses in makepkg. Unless I am wrong on this point, each prospective AUR user will have to go to the SIPphone website, click agreement to the license, and download the software manually. I have to admit that if there is support for automatically clicking thru license agreements on my behalf in makepkg, I would not feel comfortable using it. Perhaps someone will post about how click-thru licenses are usually handled in the AUR, so I can be educated.

Lone_Wolf · 2006-10-27 11:59:56

perhaps an approach similar to the one used in vmare workstation package might work ?

The package downloads the proprietary binary and makes the necessary changes to arch to get vmware working, but doesn't install the program.

installing is done manually by the user by running /opt/vmware/bin/vmware-config.pl and this is where you get the eula and have to accept it before you can start using the program.

swiergot · 2006-10-27 19:57:17

shastry wrote:

I also wonder about skype licensing... is it free to redistribute? has anyone verified?

I've got a permission to package Skype.

1c3d0g · 2006-10-27 22:13:42

Gizmo > Skype.

praka123 · 2008-04-25 13:09:50

Sorry for bump! ,but is there amy pkgbuild available?

Arch Linux

#1 2006-10-25 15:03:44

Gizmo redistribution hassle?

#2 2006-10-27 00:01:10

Re: Gizmo redistribution hassle?

#3 2006-10-27 02:45:22

Re: Gizmo redistribution hassle?

#4 2006-10-27 11:59:56

Re: Gizmo redistribution hassle?

#5 2006-10-27 19:57:17

Re: Gizmo redistribution hassle?

#6 2006-10-27 22:13:42

Re: Gizmo redistribution hassle?

#7 2008-04-25 13:09:50

Re: Gizmo redistribution hassle?

Board footer