Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: NOSA 2.0, Copyfraud and the US Government
Hi list, during this discussion I re-read CC0 and came to the conclusion that it does not license the work itself but the right to act in the stead of the author (e.g. issue licences on it). That’s interesting and allows for a _lot_ of possibilities. Of course… >Making CC0 + a patent release officially OSI-approved would solve a lot of … the explicit patent exclusion remains a problem, as there is not only no licence on the work saying one gets permission to use it but also an explicit exclusion of patents from the grant. But this helps with e.g. the question of sublicensing (both in the EU and USA sense which apparently, another thing I learnt yesternight, differ from each other) and the question of what exactly a derivative of a CC0 work needs to be put under. JFYI, IANAL, etc. //mirabilos -- I believe no one can invent an algorithm. One just happens to hit upon it when God enlightens him. Or only God invents algorithms, we merely copy them. If you don't believe in God, just consider God as Nature if you won't deny existence. -- Coywolf Qi Hunt ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: NOSA 2.0, Copyfraud and the US Government
We're doing something very close to, but not quite the same as what DDS is
suggesting; we're stating that if a work (or portion of a work) does not have
copyright attached within the US, then that work (or portion of a work) is
licensed world-wide under CC0. All other works are licensed under an
OSI-approved license of some type. To get a better sense of what I'm talking
about, clone
https://github.com/USArmyResearchLab/ARL-Open-Source-Guidance-and-Instructions
and checkout the 'develop' branch. The reason for doing it this way is to
ensure that the license for a chunk of code remains the same regardless of
where it is in the world; without that guarantee, users would have to know
where they are to know if they are in compliance or not (under the DDS scheme,
flying from the lower 48 states through Canada to Alaska would mean that code
could go from being public domain, to copyrighted, to public domain
midflight).
All that said, your second point is EXACTLY the kind of issues I'm worried
about. JOSS (http://joss.theoj.org/) is one journal that will only accept
code under OSI-approved licenses. There may be others as well, but I haven't
done my homework on that.
In addition, there are projects (like Debian) that will only accept software
that is Open Source. In the case of Debian, I think that CC0 + a patent
waiver would be sufficient (I haven't pushed this on the Debian lists, and I
can't speak for the Debian project, it is just my personal belief that it
would be OK), but I suspect that there are other projects where this isn't
possible, and your code has to be under an OSI-approved license to be
accepted.
Making CC0 + a patent release officially OSI-approved would solve a lot of
problems. If you want an example of what ARL is doing, clone
https://github.com/USArmyResearchLab/ARL-Open-Source-Guidance-and-Instructions,
checkout the 'develop' branch, and look at LICENSE.txt. It is an example of
where ARL is trying to go (note that the develop branch is not yet official
policy, and won't be until and unless it goes through ARL's official channels,
so take it as a possible direction we're going in). I've combined CC0 and
Apache 2.0, explained which portions of the code are under which license, and
I've included the patent clause from the Apache license as a new clause
overriding the CC0 patent clause. That might be sufficient for OSI as well.
Thanks,
Cem Karan
PS, I'm actively (as in whenever I'm not typing out emails today) working on
the develop branch, so depending on what time you clone it, you might see
different stuff up there.
> -Original Message-
> From: License-discuss [mailto:license-discuss-boun...@opensource.org] On
> Behalf Of Marc Jones
> Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 2:05 PM
> To: license-discuss@opensource.org
> Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: NOSA 2.0, Copyfraud and
> the US Government
>
> Cem,
>
> Has your organization considered using the approach that the Defense Digital
> Service is taking. It seems like their use of a INTENT file that
> clearly calls out the fact that the code written by federal employees as not
> being subject to copyright would address the "copyfraud"
> concern.
>
> > Licensing Intent
> >
> > The intent is that this software and documentation ("Project") should be
> > treated as if it is licensed under the license associated with the
> Project ("License") in the LICENSE.md file. However, because we are part of
> the United States (U.S.) Federal Government, it is not that
> simple.
> >
> > The portions of this Project written by United States (U.S.) Federal
> > government employees within the scope of their federal employment
> are ineligible for copyright protection in the U.S.; this is generally
> understood to mean that these portions of the Project are placed in the
> public domain.
> >
> > In countries where copyright protection is available (which does not
> > include the U.S.), contributions made by U.S. Federal government
> employees are released under the License. Merged contributions from private
> contributors are released under the License.
> Caution-https://github.com/deptofdefense/code.mil/blob/master/Proposal/INTENT.md
>
> < Caution-
> https://github.com/deptofdefense/code.mil/blob/master/Proposal/INTENT.md >
>
>
>
> In regards to the second issue, if I recall your organization has expressed
> pretty strongly that they prefer to have a license approved by OSI
> before regarding it as "open source." I do not mean to rehash the argument
> that OSI does not have any right to control the use of the
> phrase "open source." So I will leave that aside.
>
> But to take your concern seriously I did recently encounter a situation
> where a client's funding was dependent on releasing the software
> under a "open source license as defined by the Open Source Initiative or as
> Free Software as defined by the Free Software Foundation."
> Perhaps if your organization is facing
Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: NOSA 2.0, Copyfraud and the US Government
Cem,
Has your organization considered using the approach that the Defense
Digital Service is taking. It seems like their use of a INTENT file that
clearly calls out the fact that the code written by federal employees as
not being subject to copyright would address the "copyfraud" concern.
> Licensing Intent
>
> The intent is that this software and documentation ("Project") should be
treated as if it is licensed under the license associated with the Project
("License") in the LICENSE.md file. However, because we are part of the
United States (U.S.) Federal Government, it is not that simple.
>
> The portions of this Project written by United States (U.S.) Federal
government employees within the scope of their federal employment are
ineligible for copyright protection in the U.S.; this is generally
understood to mean that these portions of the Project are placed in the
public domain.
>
> In countries where copyright protection is available (which does not
include the U.S.), contributions made by U.S. Federal government employees
are released under the License. Merged contributions from private
contributors are released under the License.
https://github.com/deptofdefense/code.mil/blob/master/Proposal/INTENT.md
In regards to the second issue, if I recall your organization has expressed
pretty strongly that they prefer to have a license approved by OSI before
regarding it as "open source." I do not mean to rehash the argument that
OSI does not have any right to control the use of the phrase "open source."
So I will leave that aside.
But to take your concern seriously I did recently encounter a situation
where a client's funding was dependent on releasing the software under a
"open source license as defined by the Open Source Initiative or as Free
Software as defined by the Free Software Foundation." Perhaps if your
organization is facing a similar situation and they are looking for a
external arbitrator of what counts as FOSS, they should consider looking at
other lists of FOSS licenses. Creative Commons is listed as a "free
software" license by the Free Software Foundation. So in that situation if
they wanted to use CCO I would probably argue 1) you can use public domain
software in a "Open source" licensed under a OSI approved license, as DDS
is asserting. And 2) CC0 is considered "free software" by FSF. (
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#CC0)
Not sure if reframing the issue in those terms is an option for your
organization.
-Marc
On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 4:45 PM Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) <
cem.f.karan@mail.mil> wrote:
> > -Original Message-
> > From: License-discuss [mailto:license-discuss-boun...@opensource.org] On
> > Behalf Of Tzeng, Nigel H.
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2017 2:32 PM
> > To: license-discuss@opensource.org
> > Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: NOSA 2.0, Copyfraud
> and
> > the US Government
> >
> > CC has to submit CC0 according to tradition/rules. For them to bother,
> since
> > they won't amend CC0 itself, probably there needs to be
> > some assurance it will at least get a vote at the next board meeting, if
> not
> > assurance it would pass.
> >
> > Neither seems likely.
> >
> > Easier to just to shrug their shoulders and ignore the whole OSI approval
> > thing.
>
> Well, that's a pain. In that case, unless NOSA 2.0 gets approved, I
> suspect
> that at least some Government code is going to be zombie code, partly Open
> Source and partly CC0.
>
> Thanks,
> Cem Karan
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