License of SailfishOS for commercial distribution [answered]

I would be really glad, if we would come to an agreement.

It’s still not clear, whether community ports are legal or not. The license situation is not transparent, because I’m missing the license references in the Git repositories.

A positive example is CopperheadOS, they published their Android distribution as open source. Each component has a license reference in their Git repository and the overall License is clearly published as well. Potential partners get immediately a clear offering with price tables for commercial licensing including the option for negotiation.

I also like the approach of Redhat or Datastax. They publish real open source (The fact, that code is published doesn’t make it open source). The business model is clear. If a company license their products, they buy support and legal security to cover corporate compliance.

Our company did benefit from this model more than one time. We contributed to the open source part and could use products for free. If we deliver our product for enterprise solutions we or the customer buys a license for compliance reasons in large corporations. It’s a win-win-game even for SMEs.

@jsommer: It's still difficult for me to understand what you try to ask. Community ports can hardly be illegal as they are actively supported and encouraged by Jolla. Jolla has published all the information about the process, including a list of components that must not be part of a community port for legal reasons.

Furthermore, the general Sailfish EULA as linked to from the community port site includes this license:

... we grant you the right to access and use our Software for your own personal non-commercial use. […] For licensing our Software for wider use, please see http://www.sailfishos.org for further details. You agree not to use the Software for any other purposes without a separate agreement with us.

@ossi1967 I think that the question is fairly clear: some of the components and/or prerequisites of SailfishOS don't have a licence attached. This means that if someone wants to make commercial use of SailfishOS they need to be sure that they are not infringing any intellectual property that might expose them to legal problems later on. Jolla itself can offer a guarantee along these lines, but full information about this is not generally available. Presumably they have done this for Accione, Planet Computers, Youyota and several others.

The question is about how to clarify the situation for a port that doesn't include the components that Jolla licence from third parties, when Jolla themselves seem reluctant to discuss it, i.e. is there any interest in a group off SME's to join together to try clarify the situation by seeking legal advice independently. @jsommer Have I got that right? Please feel free to correct me if I have misunderstood.

@pakman Maybe I have difficulties in understanding because I studied law and my understanding of the word "license" might be different from yours. A license is not an attribute of the software. You can't expect software product X to just "have a (=one) license". There the person/company who holds the rights to the software (in this case, Jolla) and the person/company who wants to use it (me as a private user, or some commercial entity). Jolla is free to negotiate a new license for each such user depending on the user's role in Jolla's business plans. In the text I linked to above Jolla gives me the right to use SailfishOS for private an non-commercial purposes. If I or anybody else want to use Sailfish beyond that, they will have to negotiate a new license with Jolla. (They give an address, a name and a phone number for doing just that.) I assume (but have no means of knowing) that Jolla will change the terms of the license depending on how important the parter is, how much he is willing to invest into the ecosystem, etc. etc.

The misconception that a piece of software "is licensed under ..." and that's it then is common because we're all spoiled by the Free Software ecosystem. Most projects choose a license for everybody and that's it because they want to code, not negotiate licenses for each individual user. But that's like a hotel using the same key for each of their rooms: Saves a lot of administrative trouble, takes away a lot of control.

EDIT: ... and about "the situation for a port": Jolla states your can use their software (=Jolla's own code that's part of community ports) for your own personal non-commercial use. To me, this has always been pretty clear.

@ossi1967 - some months back, I gave a similar response to yours, by posting an address/number/contact to jsommers - but he was quick to state that my information was wrong, that there was no contact, he also informed me that Jolla and SailfishOS are not the same thing. Upon checking back on that post, I can see you have cited the same website address but with different details/number/contact - so clearly, Jolla have updated that page since my last response. I can't wait to see his response.

The questions are clear:

1. Which components of Sailfish are proprietary?
2. Are these proprietary components necessary for a working OS or is there a core system like AOSP?
3. What are the legal and commercial conditions for modification and redistribution?

I need a clear license offering and prices, preferable tiered prices. Something written. Jolla already knows details of our inquiry and should understand the questions. Because of slugging communication, I asked the community for this issue. In particular the answer of the second question could be an alternative option.

Howsoever this ends, I will stay a fan of SailfishOS. But my company may has to choose another platform. Our communication with KDE is very promising.

@jsommer: I answered question 1 and 2 last November. Question 3 cannot be answered because you refuse to disclose what you want to modify and how you want to re-distribute it.

The third question can only answer Jolla for sure. I just have listed the third one to make my questions clear. The first two questions could be answered by the community, while I have addressed the third one directly to Jolla outside of this forum.

Your answer with the listing of licenses was related to the official SailfishOS, wasn’t it? Another thread and the slugging communication with Jolla motivated me to ask for the legal situation of community ports. I conclude from your quote above, that community ports are only for private use. Can you tell me the source of your quote? Thank you for your support.

@jsommer: It's a bit frustrating that I search all the information for you (I hadn't known all that before, you know? I asked Google and had a result a few seconds later) and you don't even readmy comments or answers then. The sorce is https://jolla.com/sailfish-eula/ and I had linked to that text when I first cited it yesterday.

Thanks for your support.

The EULA is related to the official SailfishOS. The legal situation of the official SailfishOS is clear, but not of community ports. It seems, that published community ports are tolerated by Jolla without a clear official legal statement. This is a risk for community members.

A commercial distribution is not explicitly allowed of disallowed. I can just infer, that the commercial distribution of community ports are likely not allowed, because the standard apps and some UI elements including graphics and translations are proprietary software of Jolla.

Further more commercial distributions of a modified system based on mer core seems to be legal, because it doesn’t contain the mentioned proprietary components.