Highcharts license may be incompatible with Orange
brylie opened this issue · 5 comments
When installing Orange 3.3.7, I noticed the directory Orange/widgets/_highcharts/. The Highcharts JavaScript charting library is licensed under the CreativeCommons - Non Commercial 3.0 license, and may not be compatible with the Orange licenses, such as GNU GPL, or Free Software/Open Source licenses in general.
Proposed solution
Deprecate the Highcharts library in favor of a JavaScript charting library with free/open source compatible licensing terms. E.g.
References
Highcharts license
Highcharts is available under various licenses depending on the intended usage. This conflicts with both the Free Software and Open Source definitions.
Free Software definition
- The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
Open Source definition
-
- No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
Creative Commons and GPL / other open source
At best, the following Creative Commons licenses are compatible with Copyleft / open-source licenses:
- CC Zero
- CC - by
- CC - by- SA
On October 8, 2015 Creative Commons concluded that the CC BY-SA 4.0 is one-way compatible with the GPLv3.
Wikipedia: License compatibility
Creative Commons license compatibility matrix
The files in the _highcharts folder are obviously not distributed under GNU GPL. The whole of scikit-learn that we distribute as part of our package also isn't (it is BSD). Imho, what we are missing is an ATTRIBUTIONS file with 3rd party attributions and licenses.
The BSD is both FSF and OSI certified.
The Highcharts license (CC-by-NC) contains a 'non-commercial use' clause, which is not Free Software or Open Source compatible (see license compatibility). E.g. a company using Orange to analyze user data for an advertising campaign would constitute commercial use, indirectly and inadvertently violating the Highcharts license terms.
This is not a criticism of Orange, as it is a really cool project. I am mainly concerned about end-user freedom to use Orange for any purpose.
This has been partially fixed in biolab/orange3#1487. The license restriction applies for the use of Highcharts as a library, for redistribution, which is makes us, the Orange project, subject to it. Surely the users of Orange can't be expected to each get a license like the users of web applications that have bought a Highcharts license aren't. Visualizations of user's data can't be subject to that license restriction as the Highcharts owner has no copyright over it. Of course, IANAL.
Surely the users of Orange can't be expected to each get a license like the users of web applications that have bought a Highcharts license aren't.
Highcharts have made some specific statements defining commercial usage and re-distribution of the library.
There is a specific answer regarding license compatibility with Open Source Projects:
May I use your Software under the Non-Commercial License for Open Source Projects?
Although Highsoft´s Software have open source codes, our software is not licensed as an open source software and are unfortunately not compatible with any open source software license like Apache 2 or any GPL. See also Non-Commercial Redistribution
Furthermore, on the noncommercial redistribution section of the Highcharts FAQ describes limitations that affect end-user freedoms:
Non-Commercial Redistribution
You are allowed to distribute a Highsoft software product with non-commercial packages given that you fulfill two conditions:
- Emphasize to your users that Highsoft software products are not free for commercial and Governmental use. You can do this on your download page or when your users activate a Highsoft Software Product in your application.
- Provide a link back to highcharts.com in the same location.
Finally, the Highcharts licensing page describes permissions granted when purchasing a license:
[Highcharts Single Developer + Maintenance & Support license] allows Highcharts to be used in SaaS projects, web applications, intranets, and websites.