Question about addon code and their licenses, as well as code distribution/mirroring

[ephemer0l]

Hello, I’m in the process of trying to package komodo-edit for an operating system, rather then use it’s installer. For this, I need to define all the licenses it uses. I noticed under this link: ActiveState® Komodo® Edit License Agreement - ActiveState it mentions the following:

DURING THE ACTIVESTATE KOMODO EDIT INSTALLATION PROCESS, AND AT LATER TIMES, YOU MAY BE GIVEN THE OPTION OF INSTALLING ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS FROM THIRD-PARTY SOFTWARE PROVIDERS. THE INSTALLATION AND USE OF THOSE THIRD-PARTY COMPONENTS MAY BE GOVERNED BY ADDITIONAL LICENSE AGREEMENTS.

Is there an easy way to figure out the licensing if needed, or am I to parse all the plugins manually for them?

According to someone who’s so far advised me

you only need to list the license that applies to what’s being distributed - what users do with it then is up to them

So that brings up another question. Can we mirror komodo-edit on the package mirrors for the OS that hold and distribute the software across the globe?

Thanks in advance.

[nathanr]

@ephemer0l

Is there an easy way to figure out the licensing if needed, or am I to parse all the plugins manually for them?

For third party plugins we cannot guarantee anything, you’d have to look at their source code and find their relative license. That said this section of the license agreement refers to user installed packages, not ones that ship with Komodo. Keep in mind that if source code is missing a license then you have to assume the most restrictive license possible.

@ephemer0l

you only need to list the license that applies to what’s being distributed - what users do with it then is up to them

I am not a lawyer so I cannot say whether this is true. It sounds sensible but laws are often anything but that. I think often certain licenses require you to explicitly mention them. That said in regards to Komodo this should already be handled by Komodo itself.

@ephemer0l

So that brings up another question. Can we mirror komodo-edit on the package mirrors for the OS that hold and distribute the software across the globe?

As long as all that you’re mirroring is the source code then that should be alright, given that the source code is open-source. That said, you cannot redistribute Komodo in binary (compiled) form. Although some package managers get around this by sourcing the bits from the official servers (eg. AUR).

[ephemer0l]

Thank you for the clarification. It’s helped a lot.

Be well.