Re: [License-discuss] Open source license chooser choosealicense.com launched.
Pamela Chestek wrote at 09:54 (EDT) on Monday: And the major substantive aspects are what is captured in the summary. A major issue, I think, is that most people are really bad at writing good summaries of licenses. FWIW, a group of user interface researchers who have worked with Free Software extensively offered years ago to help draft user interface documents/systems that would help navigate an annotated text of various popular Free Software licenses and explain what they mean in a way that's grokkable by those who don't read licenses for a living. I asked many lawyers/licensing experts whom I knew at the time to volunteer to help on this project, and I sadly couldn't get anyone interested. The project died before it began. If there's interest in this again, I could start a thread off-list. Email me if you're interested in helping in this sort of effort, and I'll start the thread, but please be serious and ready to put time forward -- as I don't want to waste these researchers' time with another false start. -- -- bkuhn ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Open source license chooser choosealicense.com launched.
Pamela Chestek wrote at 12:18 (EDT) on Sunday: Why cannot an advocate for each license write a short blurb with the benefits and burdens of their own license? I don't think there's anything wrong with all the choices being positively-biased. This can be tested now: try it and see if choosealicense.com accepts the patches. -- -- bkuhn ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Open source license chooser choosealicense.com launched.
The GPLv3 is a rewritten GPLv2 which is less US specific, and addresses additional copyleft weaknesses. On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Engel Nyst engel.n...@gmail.com wrote: Hello license-discuss, On 08/18/2013 04:38 AM, Richard Fontana wrote: Independent of this point, I'm concerned about inaccurate statements made on the choosealicense.com site (one that we talked about was the assertion that GPLv3 restricts use in hardware that forbids software alterations). Please allow me to ask the impossible question: how would you write the summary of GPLv3 vs GPLv2 in 8-16 words? __**_ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.**org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/** license-discusshttp://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Open source license chooser choosealicense.com launched.
Pamela Chestek wrote: I'm still having a hard time reconciling this with the also-held belief that license proliferation is bad. Perhaps, but the license proliferation issue is not quite helpful when phrased that way. It isn't that MORE licenses are necessarily bad. Instead, say that the proliferation of BAD (or me-too or un-templated or legally questionable) licenses is bad. Perhaps we might conclude that there aren't enough GOOD licenses on the various Recommended lists. The problem on this discussion forum is that hardly anyone (including me!) is qualified to tell the difference between GOOD and BAD licenses, since that depends more on the client's needs than the recommender's predilections. I think instead you want licenses to be readily adopted based on decision about the major substantive aspects and the rest of it just falls where it falls. And the major substantive aspects are what is captured in the summary. Go ahead and write license summaries. That may be useful. I've done that for my own licenses and even for some licenses I didn't create. But don't try to make it seem a trivial matter for software developers to license their software by giving them a simple-minded license chooser. That's less than helpful. If a lawyer posted such a license chooser that didn't consider the unique requirements of the client, it might be considered legal malpractice. Unless there were so many disclaimers as to make it useless advice on other grounds! /Larry -Original Message- From: Pamela Chestek [mailto:pam...@chesteklegal.com] Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 6:54 AM To: license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Open source license chooser choosealicense.com launched. On 8/18/2013 10:21 PM, Richard Fontana wrote: I really believe it is best for anyone to try to read the actual license in question. A summary can be a reasonable starting point, but it especially bothers me if it is distorted (as I think it may almost always be) by political or cultural bias. This can be fixed. Github has asked for patches and no one has reported having a patch rejected. Also, if a license is really too difficult to understand, that is itself useful (for the would-be licensor and for the license steward) to find out. I'm still having a hard time reconciling this with the also-held belief that license proliferation is bad. So you would like people to read and comprehend, we'll say conservatively the 11 Popular Licenses, and find one that has the major substantive aspects they want but that also does not have any aspect that could use some tweaking for their own business model -- say, for example, a delayed release date of source code, which will mean they will write another license, or find another obscure license that does what they want but is obscure for a reason. I think instead you want licenses to be readily adopted based on decision about the major substantive aspects and the rest of it just falls where it falls. And the major substantive aspects are what is captured in the summary. Pam Pamela S. Chestek, Esq. Chestek Legal PO Box 2492 Raleigh, NC 27602 919-800-8033 pam...@chesteklegal.com www.chesteklegal.com ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Unlicense CC0 and patents
Hi, On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 11:57 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: CCO contains a well-drafted fallback to permissive terms in the event that its primary intent runs afoul of local law (as is a serious problem with such efforts), while Unlicense is a badly drafted crayon licence, apparently thrown together by software engineers imagining they can handwave away the worldwide copyright regime by grabbing a bit of wording from here, a bit from there, throwing the result out in public, and hoping for the best. My initial comments on Unlicense: http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2012-January/26.html I never bothered getting to patent complications. CC0 explicitly states that it doesn't grant patent rights if there are any. Is this not going against the purpose of putting the work in public domain itself ? Regards. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Open source license chooser choosealicense.com launched.
On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 03:01:24AM -0400, Richard Fontana wrote: license oompatibility, License compatibility, that is. :) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Unlicense CC0 and patents
On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 11:25 PM, Prashant Shah pshah.mum...@gmail.com wrote: CC0 explicitly states that it doesn't grant patent rights if there are any. Is this not going against the purpose of putting the work in public domain itself ? Not necessarily; many CC0 users are focused on data rather than anything patentable. Luis ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Open Source Eventually License Development
On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 06:29:26PM -0400, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote: Richard Fontana wrote at 08:20 (EDT): Not with an exception in the GPLv2 exception sense, and not without the result being (A)GPLv3-incompatible, since under TGPPL each downstream distributor appears to be required to give the grace period. ISTR that Zooko was willing to drop that requirement for the sake of simplicity. But maybe I'm misremembering. Zooko? Short version: I'm willing to allow a line of works licensed under TGPPL to eventually give rise to derived works licensed under GPL. However there is a specific thing that I'm unwilling to allow: that if I make a work available to you under TGPPL, that you take advantage of the 12 month grace period for keeping your derived work proprietary, and then deny the grace period option to derivors immediately downstream from you. I think both of the above are already achieved by Tahoe-LAFS's currently dual-licence (in which you may use Tahoe-LAFS under GPL or TGPPL at your option). I currently think it is possible to achieve both of the above in a future version of TGPPL, by saying: this is my work, it is licensed to you under TGPPL, the TGPPL stipulates that you can use my work only if you either (a) license your derived work under GPL *immediately* (just as standard GPL requires), or (b) license your derived work under TGPPL within 12 months. Long version: Suppose that person A produces work a1 and licenses it to person B under this licence, and person B produces a work b1 derived from a1, and then person C wishes to produce a work derived from b1. I want all of the following: i. B has the option to keep b1 proprietary for a limited time (12 months). ii. B has the option to *instead of making b1 proprietary for a limited time* to make b1 be unmodified-(A)GPLv3-licensed. iii. B does not have the option to make b1 proprietary-for-a-limited-time and then subsequently license b1 as unmodified-(A)GPLv3-licensed, thus denying to person C the option to make c1 be proprietary-for-a-limited-time. I think I already have this with the Tahoe-LAFS codebase, because of the way that it is dual-licensed under TGPPL v1+ or GPLv2+ at your option. It satifsies (i), because B can use a1 under the TGPPL. It satisfies (ii), because B can use a1 under the GPL. It satisfies (iii), because the TGPPL does not allow B to keep b1 proprietary-for-a-limited-time and then license b1 under GPL to C. The only (?) downside to this scheme is the possibility of a licence-fork: someone could take a1 (e.g. the current version of Tahoe-LAFS) under either GPL or TGPPL and release a dervied work (b1) under GPL-only, or under TGPPL-only, and then downstream users from them would not have the dual-licence option. In light of the licence-fork problem, I add below desiderata (iv) and (v). I don't believe it is possible to achieve desideratum (v) so I'm willing to forego it. iv. (No licence-fork away from GPL) B does not have the option to distribute, or to host for the use of others, b1 without C eventually (within 12 months) gaining the unmodified-(A)GPL-licence to use b1. [not achievable] v. (No licence-fork away from TGPPL) B does not have the option to distribute, or to host for the use of others, b1 without C eventually (within 12 months) gaining TGPPL-rights to use b1. Regards, Zooko ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Open Source Eventually License Development
Hi! Clark == Clark C Evans c...@clarkevans.com writes: Here is an example Business Source license... Clark Your proposal is an evaluation/crippled non-free license till a Clark particular Clark date, where upon it is automatically gifted under the GPL-3-or-later. Clark If this is the case, I wouldn’t bother with this complexity; I'd just Clark write Clark this on your website and be done with it. A. Pre-Change Terms: License, before 01 January 2015 Clark (evaluation/crippleware non-free license) B. Post-Change Terms: License after, and including, 01 January 2015: Clark (GPL-v3-or-later) It would not work to do this on the web site as the date is different for each release (assuming you have a 1 year delay for each version of the software). Clark I think this approach has an insurmountable practical adoption Clark issue -- your work would never be in any free software distributions Clark under the initial non-free license: if you're work is mediocre, it'll be Clark ignored; while, if it's really good, it'll get free software Clark competitors. The whole point in this discussion is that if there is no money to pay for the salaries to developers there is no software. In other words, it's as unlikely that there will be free software competitors for this works as there is free software competitors for any other software. Whether we like it or not, most produced software nowadays is closed source (especially from smaller companies). Just look at all the apps at Android or Iphone. Only a fraction are open source. We need to find a way to get money to pay full time developers, and in the open source world the only resonable ways to do that (that I know of) is dual licenses (that only works for infrastructure software) or time delayed open source. (Doing consulting or services on the side doesn't work; You can't make enough money on this to have a big full time developer team). Clark In all of these scenarios you marginalize marketing value and Clark potential collaboration. I disagree. It's true that with delayed open source you will not get into all distributions, but you will get a much bigger user base than by being closed source or open core. Clark This strategy might be modestly successful if the date is soon, and, Clark if it's clear that you won't move the goal post with subsequent versions Clark of the work. That is, if you've developed the work in a public Clark repository That is basicly what I am propsoing with Business source. Clark and, your next version is keeping the date promise as it approaches. For each release the new date is X years from the release date. Clark However, I don't see how this solves your revenue concern. The same way as closed source companies makes money. The point here is to find a way to develop (eventually) open source software but get similar revenue streams as closed source software. Regards, Monty ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Open source license chooser choosealicense.com launched.
Bradley M. Kuhn scripsit: This can be tested now: try it and see if choosealicense.com accepts the patches. I am very disinclined to go to the effort of integrating my ideas (the actual code, which is plain HTML, is not relevant) into Github's code, absent some indication that they would be willing to adopt a more even-handed approach. I suspect that they favor permissive licenses for business reasons, as they encourage forking. -- Is not a patron, my Lord [Chesterfield],John Cowan one who looks with unconcern on a man http://www.ccil.org/~cowan struggling for life in the water, and when co...@ccil.org he has reached ground encumbers him with help? --Samuel Johnson ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Unlicense CC0 and patents
Prashant Shah wrote: CC0 explicitly states that it doesn't grant patent rights if there are any. Is this not going against the purpose of putting the work in public domain itself? The rationale, as I understand, is that a group in a University or other large organization would like to make their work publicly available, but don't wish to have the expense of clearing it with the intellectual property department. In other words, they explicitly wish to reserve patent rights and don't want the public domain dedication to interfere with their ability to collect licensing. The FSF considers works released under CC0 to be Free Software [1], but, the rationale for this determination was never disclosed. Perhaps because anyone could sue for patent infringement regardless of copyright? The OSI couldn't come to an agreement on the fallback license, since it explicitly withheld patent rights [2]. Clark [1] [1]http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#CC0 [2] [2]http://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero References 1. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#CC0 2. http://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Unlicense CC0 and patents
Quoting Prashant Shah (pshah.mum...@gmail.com): CC0 explicitly states that it doesn't grant patent rights if there are any. Is this not going against the purpose of putting the work in public domain itself ? In general, the focus of Creative Commons licences has been on maximising the possibilities for reuse and remix of cultural works. (Small reminder: CC's focus isn't software.) Towards that end, they publish a spectrum of license that within software we would classify as variously free / open source or proprietary, the apparent aim being to coax copyright stakeholders with differing (but sometimes large) degrees of insistence on ongoing control to nonetheless permit reuse / remix of their cultural works by others under one CC licensing option or another. As an additional reminder, copyright encumbers the particular expression of a creative work in one of the statutory covered categories. Patent, by contrast, encumbers a useful practical technique or process. It's by no means obvious that exercising rights normally reserved to the owner of a copyrighted creative expression necessarily infringes any patent. (Looks to me like those concerns are largely orthogonal.) Anyway, back to CC: I would speculate that the wording of the CC0 dedication + fallback permissive licence is the way it is -- including its avoidance of the patent morass -- specifically because of CC's guiding star of trying to coax copyright stakeholders of all types into permitting reuse / remix. Purporting to require them to also throw in a bunch of patent rights would, from that perspective, reduce the appeal of their various licence options. However, the fact that I'm speculating highlights one of your larger problems in all of this: You are not (as far as I know) addressing your concerns to Creative Commons. I don't speak for them any more than I do for OSI, but, FWIW, from my acquaintance with the CC folks and observing their high level of competence, I would tend to think that if you ever conclude that their licences fail to advance their goals, the first qwestion you should ask yourself is whether you understand their goals. That aside, I notice that _many_ people trying to promote 'public domain dedications' (present company excluded) just are seeking magic tools to make legal impediments go away, and aren't interested in complex realities like, e.g., Unlicense being badly written and legally defective. For those folks, I tend to just quote Miracle Max: 'Have fun storming the castle.' -- Cheers,Two women walk into a bar and discuss the Bechdel Test. Rick Moen -- Matt Watson r...@linuxmafia.com McQ! (4x80) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Unlicense CC0 and patents
Quoting Clark C. Evans (c...@clarkevans.com): The FSF considers works released under CC0 to be Free Software [1], but, the rationale for this determination was never disclosed. Perhaps because anyone could sue for patent infringement regardless of copyright? I might point out, too, in passing, that requiring the licensor to grant a royalty-free licence to any applicable patents has limited utility in even the rosiest scenario, as licensees could turn right around and be hit up for royalties on someone _eles's_ patents over techniques the code uses. It's arguable that patent peace clauses _can_ be good strategy, but I'd urge being careful to consider whether the specific clause one has in mind is going to achieve one's aims without excessive collateral damage. The OSI couldn't come to an agreement on the fallback license, since it explicitly withheld patent rights [2]. Well, sort of. My recollection is that some of the folks on license-review including me merely suggested to CC that they should consider just dropping the withholding-patent-rights language completely (for the reasons cited in OSI's FAQ). I don't think anyone on license-review said it was, to borrow the expression, a deal-breaker, just a bad idea to put into a licence generally. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Unlicense CC0 and patents
Clark C. Evans scripsit: The FSF considers works released under CC0 to be Free Software [1], but, the rationale for this determination was never disclosed. Perhaps because anyone could sue for patent infringement regardless of copyright? Indeed, there are many Free Software licenses without patent clauses, notably the GPLv2 (which only says that if there's a patent you know about that would be infringed and is not freely licensed to all, you can't distribute the code). -- Verbogeny is one of the pleasurettesJohn Cowan co...@ccil.org of a creatific thinkerizer. http://www.ccil.org/~cowan --Peter da Silva ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
