Question regarding Sugar Public License

[netstruXure]

Before I get started, I am *not* interested in starting a flame war. SugarCRM is a for-profit business with legitimate obligations to stakeholders. I understand there is some bad blood between SugarCRM and ....... This question in NOT intended to be associated with that issue in any way.

My question is thus:

The SPL FAQ indicates that the SPL is a derivitive of the Mozilla Public License 1.1, which has been accepted by the Open Source Initiative as an open-source license. As far as I can tell, the SPL has not (yet) been accepted by the OSI as of yet, which may only mean it hasn't yet been submitted.

Now, software that is licensed under the Mozilla Public License can be sold by anyone. Free distribution (including selling) is the first criteria of a licence to be accepted by the OSI. (http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php) Basically, you can sell open source software if you like, but you must also make the source code available to the end user and allow them to modify it as they see fit. This is how Red Hat gets away with selling RHEL in such a restrictive manner. All the source code is freely available for download. (Want RHEL ISOs? Use CentOS or White Box Linux)

The SPL FAQ indicates that we are not allowed to sell SPL licensed software. Does that mean that SugarCRM doesn't WANT anyone else to sell it, or is that actually specified in the Sugar Public License? Can other parties sell SPL-licensed software as long as it also includes the source code? I can understand why SugarCRM doesn't want the competition, they have a business to run after all.


Here's the heart of my question:

My company would like to include SugarCRM in our open source product offerings as part of a linux distribution or pre-load it on servers we sell. Our open source offerings always provide access to the source code and we feel it's important to also give back to the community. This works fine for MP 1.1L-licensed software like Firefox & Thunderbird. Is this also true of SPL-licensed software, or are we legally not allowed to sell it at all?

Sincerely,

Calvin Cannon

[netstruXure]

John,

Thanks for taking the time to phone me. I look forward to seeing your partnership information.

Thanks!

- CLC