License of SailfishOS for commercial distribution [answered]
I have inconsistent or at least inconsistent information about the license of SailfishOS. It's clear, that SailfishOS is based on Open Source with different open source licenses like MIT, GPL or LGPL. It's also clear that Jolla's official SailfoshOS includes proprietary, commercial additions like Alien Dalvik, that is licensed by Jolla itself. Official partner can benefit from this bundle in a partner program.
But what's about SailfishOS without the mentioned additions but with the components, which goes beyond the pure Mer project, namely the UI layer and standard apps, which are developed by Jolla? They have likely the exclusive use of right, if no other explicit license is published. Unfortunately, I can't find a license in projects of the mer core Git repository like Lipstick, for example. This is different to popular projects in Github, which include a license document.
The license an important question for commercial products using SailfishOS because of the risk and its impact on any violation of intellectual property. It even starts with the name of the operating system itself. Its a registered European trademark of Jolla, of course. Furthermore, Jolla has applied for several international patents. This makes the legal evaluation even more complicated.
The fact, that Jolla offers developer tools for platform development and community ports, is not relevant. Of course, Jolla wants to motivate the community to contribute to their operating system and companies to develop ports. But if it comes to commercial products, it may need a special license and contract. I currently don't think that commercial ports without a contract with Jolla are possible.
My company has contact with an experienced patent attorney firm for software and another law office specialized on open source, but a legal report will be expensive. Maybe there are further community members, who are interested to share the cost in that legal report to evaluate this really great product for commercial use.
SailfishIOS is really different to iOS and Android. It has a great cutting edge user experience and it is compared to other Linux alternatives mature enough for a commercial product. But clarity about the legal situation is a presupposition of any investment in product development based on SailfishOS.
I have already asked Jolla, but it's difficult to get a response. I assume the reason is, that they are focussed on leading players of regional markets.
Why do you need an outside company to "make an expensive legal report" on SFOS when you can ask Jolla themselves for it?
Did you already call Niilo Ristmeri and present your questions to him?
juiceme ( 2018-02-26 10:51:42 +0300 )editSimple question, simple answer: I didn’t get an answer by Jolla. And yes, I’m in contact with Jolla.
jsommer ( 2018-02-26 11:28:46 +0300 )editthanks, @jsommer.
I find this very odd since I'd assume they want to sell commercial licenses of SFOS to potential partners.... and there are not too many partners knocking on doors, right?
juiceme ( 2018-02-26 12:23:02 +0300 )editYes, but Jolla is a rather small company either like we are. So I can understand, that they are focussed on market leaders of regions like Russia or Bolivia. Anyway I think it would be good decision to standardise a partner program for SMEs. In this case Jolla wouldn’t spend to much resources in the partner management for these companies, but would benefit form successful SMEs. I think it’s a strategic decision. Jolla can negotiate better prices, if they license SailfishOS exclusively for specific regions. On the other hand, they are dependent on the performance of this partners. We have decided not to close exclusive contracts with the distributors of our enterprise solutions. In the end the ISV scores an own goal with exclusive licenses. Look at the history of the iPhone. The sales went up after customers could buy it independently form any telekom providers.
jsommer ( 2018-02-26 12:47:29 +0300 )edit