[cptr13]

I agree, there's no point in debating the license. We need to finish and release our version and be done with these issues. It's the most practical solution.

Sorry, I get on that soapbox sometimes.....

[asimbaig]

Removed line 822 of TemplateUtility.php (it's under ./lib)
No more " © 2005 - 2007 Cognizo Technologies, Inc. " at the bottom of my pages, but I've still got the CPL-mandated "Powered by CATS" linking to catsone.com

That is a violation of CPL. Please read CPL Exhibit B II. You cannot and should not use the software unless you comply with CPL.

http://www.catsone.com/cpl/CPL.txt

Asim

[asimbaig]

And we can't simply slap a GPL on it. It doesn't work that way. We're using CATS under the licensing terms they set out, we have to either
1) play by their rules, in their license
2) rewrite it from scratch and release it under GPL
3) Make whatever changes we want and settle it in court, if it gets to court.

For what it's worth, and this is OPINION only. It's going to cost certain people a LOT more to chase down and sue CPL violaters then what I think it would be worth. I simply don't think it's practical. I am not condoning or suggesting that we violate the license terms, just stating my thoughts on the practicality of enforcing it. Who would they choose to sue? A large portion of the active community here on the forums are not in the United States, now you're talking about an international case....good luck with that. Lastly, and again, my opinion only, the phrase open-source was thrown around liberally and loosely from the beginning and used HEAVILY from a marketing standpoint when we've established that the license terms do not allow it to be defined as "open-source" by the organizations that have put so much into laying out definitions. So it's not hard to argue that the community was mislead.

I'm not trying to start the same old arguments that have been had repeatedly, but in reality, is it worth the time, effort, and money to enforce these license terms, when the end users are small firms, solo individuals, and spread all over the world?

Just thoughts on the topic.

I fully expect a nasty torrent of responses from certain individuals on this

Stacey Boyer, you and I had over a half hour phone conversation in excruciating detail about CPL, open source issues, CATS, openCATS. You confessed complete ignorance on open source legality and technical issues of software development...your words not mine. I am surprise and confused to see your post here beating a dead horse. Even though, I respect your opinion because you have the right to have one, I would advise you to be cautious in making assumptions about CPL and our intent or desire to take legal action against violations of the CPL. Legal action is one way to dissuade potential violators, there are many other ways.

I am not going to comment about open source, our intentions in the past and how much benefit we derived from the "community". I have not interfered with this project whatsoever in the past 2 years, as I believe that anyone should be free to contribute to this project, however they wish as long as they abide by CPL. If the community is so eager and has been at it for 2 years now, there should have been clean room implementation of CATS by now. The advancements made to date in this forum, shows exactly the reasons why we found it challenging to support the open source project in the first place.

I have stated earlier, in this forum I believe, that I wish this project all the success, and that I won't interfere in it as long as the CPL is not violated. I would suggest everyone who really wants to contribute to stop worrying about CPL and do some actual work.

There's no reason why thousands of organizations cant benefit from the current openly available version, if only there was someone talking less and actually doing some work!

[cptr13]

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[cptr13]

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[asimbaig]

The only thing restricting OpenCATS from being that solution is the CPL terms for OpenCATS. To be frank, your terms are ludicrous and completely restrict it from being defined in the traditional "open source" sense. It's free as in beer, not as in freedom. You know this. Let's not argue this anymore. When you require branding, a link and RESTRICT usage....it's not true "open source", which is what you marketed CATS on for years. I have issue with that, I always have and always will. But, that's in the past and it's moot, so let's move on.

Anyone can write code for the openly available version for CATS, and redistribute it so that others who need an ATS can benefit. No one has written jack s*&*% beyond a few bug fixes and minor joomla integrations. I admire people like Russ and others who despite not having a strong programming background, are doing their best. At least they are doing something rather than rant about me and CPL restrictions. I know pretty much everyone who visits this forum and rants about CATS not being "truly open source". Who cares. It is what it is. I can write a treatise about the validity of the license and the history, but its a moot point. Everyone who has shown an interest in CATS is a professional recruiter or somehow involved in a commercial hiring/HR activity. People need to stop BS'ing and pretending to be open source puritans.

Its total BULLSHIT that CPL is preventing involvement in the project. The code is available, and any contributions to it will go under CPL for everyone else to benefit. Get it? Improve the code, and a school in India could use it, may be a NGO in Africa could streamline the hiring process. Where are the contributions???? How would an attributions of "Powered by CATS" possibly prevent a good cause???

There really are two main ways to go about it:

- Put together a fund, raise money or if you truly love open source like I do put your own money. I spent over $200k in the development of CATS (while I was giving away free copies to thousands of people under a pretentious license).
- Hire a developer, write code, improve the resume parser, fix bugs
- Stop worrying about CPL, its not going to change.

Alternatively:

- Join open applicant or some other open source ATS
- Do a cleanroom implementation of CATS under GPL. (must be cleanroom and not a clone/copy/paste).

Lastly, I am still releasing open source software (http://www.catsone.com/downloads) using my own money and will continue to do so...more apps coming. Everything is under GPL V3 to make all the open source puritans happy.

If anyone's interested in participating (writing GPL code, beta testing our applications, modules, and plugins), please let me know. We have a bunch of people doing just that, and I have given them free CATS seats in return. Everyone on this forum is welcome.

Do something

[cptr13]

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[cptr13]

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