CATS Public License

[RussH]

sure - what do you want to know? I think the wiki is quite clear in terms of licensing etc?

[zartoop]

cognizio are never going to come to the party willingly - they would not want the competition

questions for a sharp legal mind
- is the original license valid - I doubt that it is?
- was Exhibit B ever allowed to be included under the Mozilla License - perhaps not?

[RussH]

When the doors slammed shut on the 'community release' January of this year, I had a quick conversation with the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) and they basically confirmed that the license is valid (after all if you write the software you can choose to release it under whatever license you want) - and that

(the) license grants you indefinite permission under copyright law to redistribute the work under the terms of that license. However, they may have trademark, patent or other claims against such distribution.

Therefore all the terms within that license and the Exhibits are valid - and I've been keen to stress this throughout
(http://www.opencats.org/wiki/index.php? ... icense_FAQ)

Basically - as I've said a few times here - if you wish to extend the existing codebase, you do it under the CPL.
If you don't like the CPL, the only (legal) alternative is to write a new app from the ground-up that does not share code with CATS.

That said - my 2p's worth;
(and apologies to redbullmarky for stealing some of his ideas)

- the majority of the effort over the years on CATS was refining the process flow. That work is done now.
- if the app was written today, it'd probably use a modern php framework rather than custom-coding it all.
- some of the major coding efforts of CATS are not open to us - the 'community' users - such as the hosted resume parsing. That effort wouldn't therefore need to be expended.

[Marco]

I'm interested in Cats/OpenCats, but I don't quite understand the license, especially B1.

I) You may not use the Licensed Software to operate in or as a
time-sharing, outsourcing, service bureau, application service provider
or managed service provider environment.

Reading some of Asim's comments it seems this is directed at people hosting the software to make money or professional recruiters. I wonder if the following situations allow usage of Cats in compliance with the CPL.

• company uses it internally for its own hiring process
• attorney partnership or other professional service provider uses it internally for its own hiring process
• company uses it internally for its own hiring process but hosting is done on the server of a software developer who works on a contract/freelance basis

I'm not sure, but I think the first one should generally be OK. The second one could be problematic because the term "service bureau" is a bit vague. The third situation may fall foul of a number of restrictions with "outsourcing" possibly being the most obvious. Is there some discussion somewhere of what the restrictions in B1 mean in practice?

[RussH]

I don't believe there's been any in-depth investigation of the licensing - the general understanding is that if you're installing it for your own use you're fine - you cannot resell it or host a multi-tenanted version of it for your customers.

[Marco]

Russ, thank you for the quick response. What is a multi-tenanted version? More than one user/login or more than recruiting entity/firm?

Would be nice to hear Asim's position on this. Let's see if he steps in to clarify what use is off-limits.

[Marco]

I found the following information in the CATS_QuickGuide.pdf file included in the download.

What if I want to integrate CATS into my client’s website and system? What does the CATS
Public License (CPL) say about this?

The CPL restricts you from selling CATS as a service in a manner that is competitive to our hosted
solution on catsone.com. You may implement CATS for your clients on a case by case basis as
long as you are not advertising the fact that you can fulfill ATS functionality.

For example, if you started a consulting business providing a suite of applications for a client
including CATS, this would be against the terms of the CPL. However, if you were a web host and
your client specifically asks you to install CATS, you are allowed to install, configure, and maintain
the CATS installation on behalf of the client’s request.

1) Yes, you may deliver CATS for your clients and 2) no, you are not allowed to promote it as part of
a larger solution in a standard offering. In short, you may not make a business out of selling CATS.

looks like all three examples I gave should be fine with the CPL. It's really about not creating competition for the hosted catsone.com service.

[cptr13]

@ Marco

That's correct. The intent behind that section is really to prevent competition for thier Saas offerings. Asim has confirmed this and I can't envision they would have any issues with anything that doesn't potentially compete with them.

[netcracker]

Hi,
I've already posted a question on antother topic ( [url]http://www.opencats.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=155&p=1029#p1029\[/url] ), but since I'm being pressed to make a decision, I ask again here.
Should I buy the service from QATS (qats.qareers.ro)? Are the guys at Qualitance partners of yours?
Is QATS the same as CATS but with a different name?

I don't mean to be intrusive, I just want things to be clear with me and I wouldn't want to be ripped off.

THX

[RussH]

QATS is most definitely open to licensing violations.. whether they're able to pursue them in Romania is another matter, but it's definitely NOT connected to either this 'open source' project or the official SaaS offering.