Highcharts license may be incompatible with Orange

[brylie]

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.

• NVD3
• Plotly.js
• Vega

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

• 6. 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.

Annotated Open Source Definition

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

[kernc]

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.

[brylie]

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.

[brylie]

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.

[kernc]

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.

[brylie]

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.