As an independent open source project, we needed to decide early on how to handle the intellectual property issues associated with Bedework. The two pressing questions to be decided were the terms and conditions of the Bedework license, and the terms and conditions of the Bedework contributor's agreements.
Although the case could be made that Bedework was only the logical heir to UWCalendar and not a derivative product, we weren't sure what it meant to make such as a case, or how much work it would prove to be to make such a case. Consequently, we decided to pretty much adopt and adapt the terms of UWCalendar, allowing the Bedework source code to be used for any purposes, including commercially, as long as acknowledge is given. Having to choose from the large number of open source licensing terms was not an appealing prospect anyhow.
When we were initially considering contributing to UWCalendar, we bridled at the notion of allowing anyone to make money from our work. This was clearly not a well-reasoned response as no one was exploiting UWCalendar commercially, or had shown any interest in doing so. We discussed the issue with the UW developers and they told us it was unlikely that their university had the resources or interest in policing a more restrictive license. Over time we have come to appreciate that the license needs to serve as an enabler to adoption, and that commercial adoption was perhaps a sign of success, not something to be feared.
The contributor's agreement is interesting with respect to the renewed interest in higher ed in exploiting their intellectual property commercially, and in protecting their IP. Specifics aside, it has become increasingly difficult at some universities to sign contributor's agreements in the wake of this very protective approach to IP. We would likely have more difficulty today signing the same contributor's agreement we signed four years ago.
We have received signed agreements from somewhere between six and twelve organizations, however.
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