Open Source
ActiveBPEL Open Source Licensing Policies
ActiveBPEL, LLC and its parent organization, Active Endpoints, Inc., distribute the ActiveBPEL engine technology under the GNU General Public License version 2 license GPL v2. You can use the ActiveBPEL engine under GPL v2 by downloading it from this website. Alternatively, you can acquire a Commercial License to Active Endpoints' ActiveVOS Enterprise product by contacting Active Endpoints.
1 - Licensing Introduction and Guidelines
ActiveBPEL Engine 2.1 is an open source implementation of the 1.1 Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) standard. The sections that follow give more specific information about licensing, code contributions, and our policies on patents and trademarks. Please read these sections carefully, as they are intended to help you understand your responsibilities when you use the ActiveBPEL engine technology.Return to ActiveBPEL Open Source Licensing Policies Index
2 - Open Source and Commercial Licenses
ActiveBPEL, LLC is an open source software organization that licenses and distributes the ActiveBPEL Engine technology.
ActiveBPEL, LLC distributes its ActiveBPEL Engine technology under the GPL v2. However, because the ActiveBPEL engine technology includes some software written and licensed by others, certain parts of the ActiveBPEL Engine technology are covered by other open source license agreements, such as the Lesser GNU General Public License (LGPL). In this Licensing Policies statement, the open source licenses that collectively cover the ActiveBPEL Engine's technologies are referred to as the "Open Source Licenses." The ActiveBPEL Engine technology is licensed free of charge and is provided "AS IS." Because the ActiveBPEL Engine technology is offered free of charge, ActiveBPEL, LLC does not take on any liability for performance or intellectual property matters for this software.
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3 - Changes to our Licensing Policies
The licensing policy of ActiveBPEL, LLC and Active Endpoints, Inc. is subject to change.
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4 - Contributions and Code Base Sharing
Like most open source projects, we will maintain the code base; contributions you offer may or may not be included. Any code included in our open source code base will be made available under our Open Source License terms. However, because we also offer a commercial licensing model, we may use contributions to our open source code base in our commercially licensed products as well.
If you wish to contribute to the ActiveBPEL Engine code base, you must agree to the terms of our Code Contribution Terms & Conditions, available to registered developers. We cannot accept contributions unless you agree to these terms. This helps protect us, and the open source community, from liability for intellectual property infringement.
From time to time, Active Endpoints, Inc. and ActiveBPEL, LLC may file for and obtain patents in the United States or any other country. We will not exercise our patents to take a "second bite at the apple." In other words, if any code you received from us under an Open Source License falls within the scope of any claim of any of our patents, we will not use that patent to prevent you from exercising your license to that code.
The following is a more formal declaration of our patent policy: To the extent you make software and use the ActiveBPEL Engine software licensed to you by ActiveBPEL, LLC under an Open Source License and such software infringes any claim of any patent owned by Active Endpoints, Inc. or ActiveBPEL, LLC ("Active"), Active shall not enforce such patent against you in connection with such making or use such software. The foregoing does not apply if the infringement arises from modifications to the licensed software made by any party other than Active. The foregoing will be void with respect to you if you bring a patent infringement claim against Active or any of its affiliates (including without limitation cross-claims or counterclaims). The foregoing will not be construed as an assurance that such patents are enforceable or that the exercise of rights under such patents does not infringe the patent or other intellectual property rights of any other entity.
The ActiveBPEL Engine technology implements a standard called the Business Process Execution Language 1.1 and 2.0 standards and the WS-Human Task and BPEL4People specifications, published by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). Information about these standards and specifications are available from OASIS. Some of the companies that participated in the development of that standard have made statements about the patent rights they own that cover this standard; see OASIS Web Services Business Process Execution Language IPR. ActiveBPEL, LLC cannot control these policies. Currently, no company has posted a patent policy demanding license fees to practice the standard. Some of the companies, however, have posted terms and conditions for a royalty-free patent license. We cannot control these terms and conditions. If you license the ActiveBPEL engine technology, you are responsible for complying with those terms if you wish to benefit from those patent licenses. Our Open Source Licenses do not grant any rights to these patents.
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We offer our software under Open Source Licenses, so you will have the freedom to alter it. But there is a difference between copyright in software and trademark rights. We strictly enforce our trademark rights - we must, in order to keep them valid. There are significant restrictions on your ability to use the ActiveBPEL, LLC name and logos, even when built into binaries that we provide.
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You must not remove our trademarks from our binaries. You may truthfully state that an unmodified version of our software is ActiveBPEL software, as long as you include the appropriate notice language described below.
However, if you are distributing copies over a Web site, we ask that you do this by providing a link directly to our site, rather than offering it on your own server. We require this because the speed and reliability of the server will bear upon our reputation and affect our rights in our trademark.
In addition, you must ensure that you are properly identifying ActiveBPEL, LLC as the source of the ActiveBPEL Engine technology. Otherwise, you will be incorrectly implying that you are the source of our software. You must do this even if you have modified the ActiveBPEL software as allowed under the Open Source Licenses. Therefore, to avoid violating our trademark rights, you should use trademarks and notices as follows:
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If you are redistributing unmodified versions of our software as made available on our Web site, you must not remove our trademarks from unmodified binaries. Thus, any of our notices or logos that are embedded in the ActiveBPEL engine software must remain visible to the user.
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If you are redistributing modified versions of our software, you must include a notice stating: "This product includes software used under license from ActiveBPEL, LLC, but it is not an ActiveBPEL product and has not been tested, endorsed, or approved by ActiveBPEL, LLC."
- If you are redistributing either unmodified or modified versions of the ActiveBPEL technology, you must prominently place a notice saying "Powered by ActiveBPEL" on the packaging, promotional content (e.g. brochures, press releases, website copy), and about screens for your software. You must also follow the Trademark Guidelines on the proper use of our trademarks.
Our trademarks symbolize our reputation and identity, so their proper use is important. You would need a formal license from us in order to use our trademarks in a way that states or suggests that we sponsor, endorse, or are otherwise affiliated with your project or use. You do not need a formal license agreement in order to make purely informational references to our trademarks (such as in a product review or article), but even informational references should follow our Trademark Guidelines. Provided that you follow these guidelines, you may link to www.activebpel.org. However, the context and implementation of those links must make it clear that you are not endorsed by or affiliated with us, but are simply linking to our site or our software. Please e-mail us at legal@activevos.com if you have any questions about the use of our trademarks.
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The first or most prominent mention of our registered trademark, ActiveBPEL, as well as any of our other trademarks identified below, should be accompanied by the registered trademark symbol (®) in superscript and an asterisk immediately to the right, e.g.: ActiveBPEL®*. Somewhere nearby in legible typeface should be an asterisk with a notation reading: "ActiveBPEL® is a registered trademark of ActiveBPEL, LLC, and is used under license."
We may register this (and other) trademarks in the future,
It is not necessary to use trademark symbols at every mention of a mark in running text. Instead, acknowledge the trademark at the first and most prominent references to a particular mark - such as in headers on a web page, the beginning and ending of presentations, login or welcome screens, product media, and advertising or promotional materials in all media.
Trademarks Should Be Used as Adjectives and in Their Proper Form.
Trademarks should be used as adjectives followed by a generic term - for instance, ActiveBPEL® engine technology. The spelling and syntax of marks should never be varied - no words should be omitted or abbreviated, nor should acronyms be used in place of specific marks.
A current list of our trademarks appears below. Any questions about proper use for a specific display should be directed to legal@activevos.com.
List of Trademarks Currently Owned by ActiveBPEL, LLC and Active Endpoints, Inc.
To view a list of trademarks currently owned by ActiveBPEL, LLC and Active Endpoints, Inc., please see our Legal Notice.
