For a change, a license that is not ten pages long and basically boils down
to the fact that the user has no rights at all, but is short and written
in simple English (at least until I can afford to get a lawyer to do it
properly). In this document, "I", "me", "my", etc refer to the copyright owner.
This software is completely free of charge for non commercial use and
distribution, but commercial use and distribution of the software requires
an individually negotiated license agreement with the copyright owner. This
means that any commercial organisation that wishes to use the software, or
distribute the software must contact the copyright owner to negotiate a
deal. My intention is to get rewarded for my efforts if anybody makes lots
of money with the software.
For the alpha testers that also happen to be commercial organisations, the
deal is that you can use and distribute the software for no charge as long as you
test it promptly each time I send you an update. All alpha testers must return test
results to me as soon as possible, including the Operating System (OS) name
and version, and the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) name and version, for as
many different OS's and JVM's as you can. If there is a test function, it's
output should also be included. In case anybody thinks there is a loophole in
this paragraph, you are only an alpha tester if I say you are an alpha tester.
Commercial organisations that donate code to the software can count that code as
their license fee, but only if it is non-trivial. Commercial organisations that
have an annual turnover of less than AUD$1,000,000 AND have assets worth less
than AUD$1,000,000 are exempt from the license negotiation.
The software must always be distributed in the form that I release it in, including
source code, developer documentation, and this license.
The source code for the software is included as part of this package for two
reasons. The first reason is that the paranoid may wish to review the source
code for deliberate security holes, and recompile the software if they want to.
The second reason is for those that wish to contribute code and fixes to
the software. All changes to the source code for the software must be sent to me for
possible inclusion in a later revision. I am mostly worried about quality
control issues. I will not get into ownership issues of contributed changes
in this version of the license, except to say that I am open to negotiation,
but I would prefer not to complicate this license. On the other hand, see the
LICENSE files scattered throughout the src directory for my solution to the included
code problem. Basically, this is open source.
I guarantee the electrons and photons that the software is distributed on. If
any of your photons prove to be defective, I will replace them, free of
charge. Replacement electrons will be charged.
This file was last modified on Wednesday, 06-Oct-2004 16:22:15 EST