I have a couple questions and recommendations about the open source licenses used by Eggplant software. I’m basing this on the two linked examples below, though I haven’t searched for every such page. This is probably not at the top of everyone’s list of concerns, and it certainly wasn’t on mine until I performed my GNU/Linux install of Eggplant Functional and interacted with the installed libraries first-hand. I don’t think I’ve worked with an application like Eggplant before with this mix of free and open source software under the hood, so I hope the query is embraced with the spirit of curiosity it’s coming from!
First, the questions:
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Source: Is source code for the particular versions of free and open source licensed software used in each Eggplant product release available to Eggplant users? If so, where is that documented?
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Licenses: Are the full free and open source licenses included in the application binaries, or pointed to somewhere in release notes accompanying the binaries by URL?
And the recommendations:
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Source: As a free and open source software user, I’m always excited to have access to source code for the software I use. If there’s not a link or some access to the source for versions of free and open source software utilized by the Eggplant applications, it’s a good idea to have that somewhere so users can better understand what’s going into their system. Even better, providing a source archive for download on the binaries download page would be convenient
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Licenses: It may seem a small matter to some, but for each page that lists out the free and open source licenses, it should be made clear there are different types of licenses. They are not all “open source” licenses (e.g. GPL is “free” software, Apache License is “open source”), although most of them are OSI approved.