[In response to Kevin, I have changed the subject.]
I appreciate learning John Cowan's opinion about the "commons" that is/are
created by open source licenses, but I wish to differ from his conclusions.
Almost all copyleft licenses are compatible with each other for aggregations
("collective works") because of OSD #1 ("the license shall not restrict any
party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate
software distribution containing programs from several different sources"). But
none of them are compatible with each other for joint "derivative works"
without dual licensing. Fortunately, such joint derivative works are
exceedingly rare in practical computer programming.
This entirely compatible commons includes software under the MPL, Eclipse PL,
LGPL, and OSL 3.0 licenses. For those licenses, there is only one commons. This
is true even if you link the programs statically or dynamically, use class
inheritance, or even (if the Supreme Court agrees) copy header files and
standard software APIs from one licensed copyleft program to another.
The only exceptions are the GPL/AGPL licenses. These create separate commons
that are incompatible with other licenses ONLY because the licenses are
interpreted by FSF to include static linking and other forms of independent
program interaction as a form of derivative work rather than of simple
aggregation. This is an FSF license interpretation problem, not an actual
problem based on copyright law. FSF is entitled to interpret their own
licenses, but not to foist those interpretations on other licenses. They can
choose to reject the one open source commons software for their own licenses
but not for others.
Despite what John says, you can aggregate the one open source commons created
by MOST copyleft (and permissive) licenses to your heart's content without
fear. Bravo for open source!
Best, /Larry
From: John Cowan <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2019 8:27 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: Lawrence Rosen <[email protected]>; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] License licenses
On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 1:11 AM James <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
FWIW, I only consider about five different licenses for new projects.
Not because they're necessarily better than OSL (I never investigated
that deeply) but because I am against license proliferation, and the
existing five are good enough.
I have a more specific reason for disliking the OSL. The GPL creates a
separate commons from
all the permissive open source licenses together because any programs with GPL
components
must (according to common understanding) be released under the GPL. In fact
there are
two such commons, one for GPL-2-only and the other for GPL-2-upgradeable plus
GPL-3.
The OSL also creates its own commons, one that is never going to catch up in
size and richness
with the GPL's. Furthermore, there is a separate commons for the Non-Profit
OSL, and apparently
for each version of both. Therefore I would always discourage people from
using it despite its impeccable
FLOSS Buddha-nature. This does *not* apply to the AFL.
But if 1(c) in both the OSL and the NPOSLwere modified in a new version 4 from:
with the proviso that copies of Original Work or Derivative Works that You
distribute or communicate shall be licensed under this Open Software License
to:
with the proviso that copies of Original Work shall be licensed under this Open
Software License, and Derivative Works that You distribute or communicate shall
be licensed either any version of this Open Software License or of the
Non-Profit Open Software
License or in the alternative under any version of the GNU General Public
License
(or words to that effect), I would withdraw my objection.
This can already be achieved on a case-by-case basis by multiple-licensing
language like "licensed under the
OSL version 3.0 or, at the user's option, under any later version of the OSL,
under the GNU GPL version 2, or
any later version of the GNU GPL", but most people aren't going to bother with
that. I'd like it to be an
inherent part of the OSL.
John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
Normally I can handle panic attacks on my own; but panic is, at the moment,
a way of life. --Joseph Zitt
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