Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open source project CC0

[Henrik Ingo]

Hi Shahar.

You already got many answers, but none seem to be complete, so let me have
a go...

On Tue, Nov 7, 2017 at 8:09 PM, Shahar Or 
wrote:

> I have been asked to change the license of an open source project of mine
> to CC0. I'm reluctant to do so, as it is not OSI approved.
> https://github.com/mightyiam/shields-badge-data/issues/28
>

Makes sense. I wouldn't do it either.

I should say I think Creative Commons is great and all of what they do is
well intended. But for software I think there's no justification to not
pick an OSI approved license. (Conversely, CC licenses are primarily
designed for copyrighted works that are not software code.)

The relevant history here is as follows:

A couple years ago people proposed to Creative Commons to submit CC0 for
OSI certification. You can find that discussion on license-review list if
you want to read with your own eyes.

Questions were then raised about the fact that CC0 expressly excludes
patents from the grant. (Which is fair in the sense that public domain is a
concept related to copyright.) Many reviewers voiced an opinion that
explicitly reserving the right to sue your users for patent infringment is
clearly not compatible with the Open Source Definition. (Notably, OSI has
previously rejected licenses on the same grounds. Search for MXL I believe?)

CC then withdrew it's submission. Technically then, it's never been decided
whether CC0 is open source or not, but it is not OSI approved.

Is there good reason for this request, at all?
>

Probably not. Maybe they don't want other licenses in their repo. It's
quite common for open and closed software to include small parts that are
BSD, ISC, MIT, etc licensed, even if the software as a whole is licensed
under its own license.

If they have an actual reason (that is not a policy or possibly a
misinformed reason), it would have to be something that is in the ISC
license and not in CC0. Seems like warranty and patents are the 2
alternatives?



> I mean, can they not otherwise depend on my software, if their software is
> CC0 licensed?
> When I conveyed my reluctance it was suggested that I dual-license.
>

Dual-license is often a good solution! You have 1 license that is OSI
approved, so you are clearly open source. Then you have other licenses that
meet some other specific need.

You need to consider still, whether CC0 is a license you want to use. Is it
ok that someone would distribute your software without warranty and with
explicitly reserving the right to sue for patents?

Note that as long as you keep the ISC in your own repo, then people getting
the software from you, will still have both the warranty and whatever
patent license may be implied by the short ISC license.

henrik
-- 
henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi
+358-40-5697354skype: henrik.ingoirc: hingo
www.openlife.cc

My LinkedIn profile: http://fi.linkedin.com/pub/henrik-ingo/3/232/8a7
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Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open source project CC0

[Christopher Sean Morrison]

On Nov 07, 2017, at 02:27 PM, Shahar Or  wrote:


Nigel, in case there's a misunderstanding—I'm not contributing to a CC0 
licensed project. A maintainer of a CC0 licensed project has requested me to 
re-license my ISC licensed project to CC0.


What do you mean by "Modifying the stock CC0"? Did they?


I presume he was referring to my reply which suggested that if you use CC0, to address 
patents in some manner.  CC0 is in prevalent use so you're probably fine either way, but 
just be aware that there is uncertainty (or at least disagreement) as to whether CC0's 
fallback license is consistent with the Open Source Definition (OSD) as defined by OSI.  
The reason is that it essentially says "no patent grant for you!" which none of 
the permissives (e.g., ISC) say.


To the contrary, licenses like ISC arguably imply a patent license, but this is fully 
untested.  For an artwork asset, it doesn't really matter.  For code and contributors, it 
"could" matter if someone has a patent.


My overarching suggestion remains to address CC0's patent clause in *some* 
manner whether by a contributor agreement, dual-licensing, or amendment and 
probably in that order of decreasing favor.



And what do you mean by "they won’t use your code anyway"? They intend to use 
it as a dependency, via package management (Node.js/NPM) and specifically include it in 
their web frontend via bundling (Webpack, probably).


To me, their request makes absolutely no sense unless they distribute that 
frontend code independently of npm.  They're basically asking to not have to 
acknowledge your contribution as having come from you.  They're certainly able 
to do that and not an uncommon desire, but it seems very lame to me to ask that 
of an ISC code.




It appears to me that the maintainers want all the code and art assets under 
one license and they are using CC0.  That’s not too uncommon in general and in 
this case, it makes even more sense given that shields appears to 
programmatically makes badges in svg.



Except they are extending their desire to non-bundled *dependencies*, which is 
just bizarre.  It's like wanting GPL virality sans copyright ... copyfarleft?

 
The patent provision is meaningless if you don’t own any patents used by your 
code.


It's not necessarily meaningless to contributors and forks and future you.



Cheers!

Sean


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Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open source project CC0

[Shahar Or]

Nigel, in case there's a misunderstanding—I'm not contributing to a CC0
licensed project. A maintainer of a CC0 licensed project has requested me
to re-license my ISC licensed project to CC0.

What do you mean by "Modifying the stock CC0"? Did they?

And what do you mean by "they won’t use your code anyway"? They intend to
use it as a dependency, via package management (Node.js/NPM) and
specifically include it in their web frontend via bundling (Webpack,
probably).

On Tue, Nov 7, 2017 at 9:05 PM Tzeng, Nigel H. <nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu>
wrote:

> Oops, hit send by accident.  CC0 is also accepted as GPL compatible and is
> a free software license (as judged by the FSF).
>
>
>
> It appears to me that the maintainers want all the code and art assets
> under one license and they are using CC0.  That’s not too uncommon in
> general and in this case, it makes even more sense given that shields
> appears to programmatically makes badges in svg.  I guess they want to be
> sure that all of the vectorized images that are in the repo are CC0 to try
> to avoid issues.  The line between code and art asset are blurrier for this
> project than most.
>
>
>
> If it bothers you a lot then don’t contribute to the project but there
> doesn’t seem to be anything sinister about the request.
>
>
>
> The patent provision is meaningless if you don’t own any patents used by
> your code.  Modifying the stock CC0 probably means they won’t use your code
> anyway so either comply with the request or not.  You aren’t obligated to
> contribute anything but neither are they obligated to change policy.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Nigel
>
>
>
> *From: *Nigel Tzeng <nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu>
> *Date: *Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 1:38 PM
>
>
> *To: *License Discuss <license-discuss@opensource.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open
> source project CC0
>
>
>
> CC0 is accepted as open source by the federal government in the Federal
> Source Code Policy.
>
>
>
> https://code.gov/#/policy-guide/docs/overview/introduction
>
> https://github.com/GSA/code-gov-web/blob/master/LICENSE.md
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *License-discuss <license-discuss-boun...@opensource.org> on
> behalf of Christopher Sean Morrison <brl...@mac.com>
> *Reply-To: *License Discuss <license-discuss@opensource.org>
> *Date: *Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 1:33 PM
> *To: *License Discuss <license-discuss@opensource.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open
> source project CC0
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 7, 2017, at 12:09 PM, Shahar Or <mightyiamprese...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> I have been asked to change the license of an open source project of mine
> to CC0. I'm reluctant to do so, as it is not OSI approved.
>
>
>
> That’s a reasonable concern, imho.
>
>
>
>
> https://github.com/mightyiam/shields-badge-data/issues/28
>
>
>
> Is there good reason for this request, at all?
>
>
>
> There’s no technical reason.  Not permitting incorporation of permissively
> licensed code (eg MIT) predominantly means throwing away attribution.
>
>
>
>
> I mean, can they not otherwise depend on my software, if their software is
> CC0 licensed?
>
>
>
> If your code used a license that applied to combined works (eg GPL),
> there’d be an issue.
>
>
>
>
> When I conveyed my reluctance it was suggested that I dual-license.
>
>
>
> With CC0, I would suggest striking the patent provision or incorporating a
> patent grant from contributors in some manner.  Dual licensing with a
> permissive is an option too.
>
> Cheers!
>
> Sean
>
>
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>
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Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open source project CC0

[Tzeng, Nigel H.]

Oops, hit send by accident.  CC0 is also accepted as GPL compatible and is a 
free software license (as judged by the FSF).

It appears to me that the maintainers want all the code and art assets under 
one license and they are using CC0.  That’s not too uncommon in general and in 
this case, it makes even more sense given that shields appears to 
programmatically makes badges in svg.  I guess they want to be sure that all of 
the vectorized images that are in the repo are CC0 to try to avoid issues.  The 
line between code and art asset are blurrier for this project than most.

If it bothers you a lot then don’t contribute to the project but there doesn’t 
seem to be anything sinister about the request.

The patent provision is meaningless if you don’t own any patents used by your 
code.  Modifying the stock CC0 probably means they won’t use your code anyway 
so either comply with the request or not.  You aren’t obligated to contribute 
anything but neither are they obligated to change policy.

Regards,

Nigel

From: Nigel Tzeng <nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu>
Date: Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 1:38 PM
To: License Discuss <license-discuss@opensource.org>
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open source 
project CC0

CC0 is accepted as open source by the federal government in the Federal Source 
Code Policy.

https://code.gov/#/policy-guide/docs/overview/introduction
https://github.com/GSA/code-gov-web/blob/master/LICENSE.md


From: License-discuss <license-discuss-boun...@opensource.org> on behalf of 
Christopher Sean Morrison <brl...@mac.com>
Reply-To: License Discuss <license-discuss@opensource.org>
Date: Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 1:33 PM
To: License Discuss <license-discuss@opensource.org>
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open source 
project CC0



On Nov 7, 2017, at 12:09 PM, Shahar Or 
<mightyiamprese...@gmail.com<mailto:mightyiamprese...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I have been asked to change the license of an open source project of mine to 
CC0. I'm reluctant to do so, as it is not OSI approved.

That’s a reasonable concern, imho.



https://github.com/mightyiam/shields-badge-data/issues/28

Is there good reason for this request, at all?

There’s no technical reason.  Not permitting incorporation of permissively 
licensed code (eg MIT) predominantly means throwing away attribution.



I mean, can they not otherwise depend on my software, if their software is CC0 
licensed?

If your code used a license that applied to combined works (eg GPL), there’d be 
an issue.



When I conveyed my reluctance it was suggested that I dual-license.

With CC0, I would suggest striking the patent provision or incorporating a 
patent grant from contributors in some manner.  Dual licensing with a 
permissive is an option too.
Cheers!
Sean

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Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open source project CC0

[Tzeng, Nigel H.]

CC0 is accepted as open source by the federal government in the Federal Source 
Code Policy.

https://code.gov/#/policy-guide/docs/overview/introduction
https://github.com/GSA/code-gov-web/blob/master/LICENSE.md


From: License-discuss <license-discuss-boun...@opensource.org> on behalf of 
Christopher Sean Morrison <brl...@mac.com>
Reply-To: License Discuss <license-discuss@opensource.org>
Date: Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 1:33 PM
To: License Discuss <license-discuss@opensource.org>
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open source 
project CC0



On Nov 7, 2017, at 12:09 PM, Shahar Or 
<mightyiamprese...@gmail.com<mailto:mightyiamprese...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I have been asked to change the license of an open source project of mine to 
CC0. I'm reluctant to do so, as it is not OSI approved.

That’s a reasonable concern, imho.


https://github.com/mightyiam/shields-badge-data/issues/28

Is there good reason for this request, at all?

There’s no technical reason.  Not permitting incorporation of permissively 
licensed code (eg MIT) predominantly means throwing away attribution.


I mean, can they not otherwise depend on my software, if their software is CC0 
licensed?

If your code used a license that applied to combined works (eg GPL), there’d be 
an issue.


When I conveyed my reluctance it was suggested that I dual-license.

With CC0, I would suggest striking the patent provision or incorporating a 
patent grant from contributors in some manner.  Dual licensing with a 
permissive is an option too.
Cheers!
Sean

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Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open source project CC0

[Tzeng, Nigel H.]

Sorry, this isn’t an issue.

Q. Does using CC0 affect my ability to disclaim warranties?

A. No. CC0 explicitly disclaims "representations or warranties of any kind" 
(see 4(b)). This is not affected by CC0's abandonment of all copyright-related 
rights to the extent legally possible. Disposing of an asset (whether or not 
gratis) often involves a statement by the prior owner as to the state of the 
asset disposed of such that the owner has no responsibility/liability for 
things that may go wrong once the asset is no longer theirs. As with a quit 
claim used with real property, with CC0 a copyright holder abandons or quits 
their interest without any further obligation, including without warranty.

https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0_FAQ#Does_using_CC0_affect_my_ability_to_disclaim_warranties.3F

License Text:

4.b Affirmer offers the Work as-is and makes no representations or warranties 
of any kind concerning the Work, express, implied, statutory or otherwise, 
including without limitation warranties of title, merchantability, fitness for 
a particular purpose, non infringement, or the absence of latent or other 
defects, accuracy, or the present or absence of errors, whether or not 
discoverable, all to the greatest extent permissible under applicable law.


On 11/7/17, 12:20 PM, "License-discuss on behalf of David Woolley" 
 wrote:

On 07/11/17 17:09, Shahar Or wrote:

> Is there good reason for this request, at all? I mean, can they not 
> otherwise depend on my software, if their software is CC0 licensed?
> When I conveyed my reluctance it was suggested that I dual-license.

Dual licensing is pointless, as CC0 is always more permissive, so there 
is really no point in anyone using the alternative licence.

Please request the person making this request to indemnify you against 
all actions for damages as a result of using the software, and ensure 
they have the resources to back that indemnity.

The reason for not using CC0 is that open source licences generally 
always include a waiver of warranty as part of the conditions of the 
licence.
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Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open source project CC0

[Christopher Sean Morrison]

> On Nov 7, 2017, at 12:09 PM, Shahar Or  wrote:
> 
> I have been asked to change the license of an open source project of mine to 
> CC0. I'm reluctant to do so, as it is not OSI approved.

That’s a reasonable concern, imho.

> https://github.com/mightyiam/shields-badge-data/issues/28
> 
> Is there good reason for this request, at all?

There’s no technical reason.  Not permitting incorporation of permissively 
licensed code (eg MIT) predominantly means throwing away attribution.

> I mean, can they not otherwise depend on my software, if their software is 
> CC0 licensed?

If your code used a license that applied to combined works (eg GPL), there’d be 
an issue.

> When I conveyed my reluctance it was suggested that I dual-license.

With CC0, I would suggest striking the patent provision or incorporating a 
patent grant from contributors in some manner.  Dual licensing with a 
permissive is an option too.

Cheers!
Sean

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Re: [License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open source project CC0

[David Woolley]

On 07/11/17 17:09, Shahar Or wrote:

Is there good reason for this request, at all? I mean, can they not 
otherwise depend on my software, if their software is CC0 licensed?

When I conveyed my reluctance it was suggested that I dual-license.


Dual licensing is pointless, as CC0 is always more permissive, so there 
is really no point in anyone using the alternative licence.


Please request the person making this request to indemnify you against 
all actions for damages as a result of using the software, and ensure 
they have the resources to back that indemnity.


The reason for not using CC0 is that open source licences generally 
always include a waiver of warranty as part of the conditions of the 
licence.

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[License-discuss] I've been asked to license my open source project CC0

[Shahar Or]

I have been asked to change the license of an open source project of mine
to CC0. I'm reluctant to do so, as it is not OSI approved.
https://github.com/mightyiam/shields-badge-data/issues/28

Is there good reason for this request, at all? I mean, can they not
otherwise depend on my software, if their software is CC0 licensed?
When I conveyed my reluctance it was suggested that I dual-license.

Help?
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