Re: [License-discuss] Does this look like an open source license?
I'd be really interested to learn more about the incident in question. Knowing what made the BSD 3-Clause insufficient might help improve the language. Constraining the license text to only include the words in the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary sounds like a fun challenge. I'll see what sort of concrete suggestions I can come up with (again with the disclaimer that I am merely a license enthusiast). Thanks, BC ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Does this look like an open source license?
On 23/01/15 01:09, ChanMaxthon wrote: I was once using straight 3c-BSDL but one incident (I am not from an Anglophone country) proved to me that it's language is too complex in local courts. Now I am sort of forced into creating a functional equivalent using only simple English (definition: restrict word usage to the 3000 basic English word defined by Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary) so this is my first attempt. You can't expect to do that without creating a significantly longer document, as you must make explicit all the nuances of the original language. Legal documents are written in natural languages but have very carefully crafted meanings, which often depend on the precise meanings of the words chosen. Whilst the BSD licence is probably relatively easy in this respect, longer licences could easily be completely misrepresented. You can see this in the way the Creative Commons licences are done. There is a plain language version to try and give the general public an idea of the meaning, but there is also a legal code version, which is the one intended to be used by the courts. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Does this look like an open source license?
I was once using straight 3c-BSDL but one incident (I am not from an Anglophone country) proved to me that it's language is too complex in local courts. Now I am sort of forced into creating a functional equivalent using only simple English (definition: restrict word usage to the 3000 basic English word defined by Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary) so this is my first attempt. Sent from my iPhone On Jan 23, 2015, at 02:00, Ben Cotton bcot...@fedoraproject.org wrote: On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:32 AM, Maxthon Chan xcvi...@me.com wrote: I have used a license like this for my open projects for a very long time. Does this look like a real open source license? snip Is this a rephrase of the 3-clause BSD license? It looks like a rephrase of the BSD 3-Clause, but there are some concerns I have about it (I am not a lawyer, so my concerns may be incomplete and/or irrelevant)... * You distribute this software in its executable form with the copyright notice above, this license and the disclaimer below intact and display them in appropriate ways; * You distribute this software in its source code form with the copyright notice above, this license and the disclaimer below intact and the end result of such source code displays them in appropriate ways; These two clauses, pedantically interpreted, would require anyone who uses the software to distribute it. Basically you'd want If you distribute...then you must include... The BSD 3-Clause begins both clauses with the word Redistributions in order to make it clear. In addition, I'm not sure what is meant in the second clause by the end result of such source code. Does that mean any compiled/interpreted code must display the license? What if it's a program that generally produces no output (think `cp`, `mv`, etc.)? The BSD 3-Clause requires the notice in the documentation, etc., but not in the end result of the source code. I would argue that it violates item 10 of the Open Source Definition, but that's a debatable point. In any case, it seems impractical. * The name of the author and contributors are not used without previous explicit written permission by the author and contributors. This also seems impractical, as it would disallow attribution. This license doesn't require attribution, so it's not a direct conflict, but it would prevent a common courtesy (at least without administrative overhead for both the original and downstream developers). The BSD 3-Clause forbids the use of the author's name to endorse or promote products derived from [the] software, but not attribution. This wouldn't technically violate any part of the OSD as far as I can tell, but it's unwieldy. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED TO YOU ON AN AS-IS BASIS. NO WARRANTY WHATSOEVER COMES WITH THIS SOFTWARE, IMPLICIT OR NOT, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE LAWS. THE AUTHORS, CONTRIBUTORS AND COPYRIGHT HOLDERS SHALL NOT BE HELD RELIABLE TO ANY DAMAGE OR LOSS OCCURRED FROM USING OF THIS SOFTWARE. THE LAWS? What laws? It's not clear from your post if you've written this license or if you got it from somewhere else, but if it's yours I wonder what the motivation for this is as opposed to just using the BSD 3-Clause, which seems to have the same intention but with more practical wording. Thanks, BC -- Ben Cotton ___ 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] FAQ entry on CLAs
The possible need for re-licensing under a different open source license is one the biggest reasons I am generally an advocate for CLAs (with an appropriate community-based governance organization like the ASF). I find the cautionary tale of the Mozilla Relicensing Effort [1] illuminating -- it took 4.5 years to track down 445 contributors and get appropriate permission so that Firefox/Thunderbird/etc could be directly included into Linux distros. All of which could have been avoided with an Apache-style CLA in place. [1] http://www-archive.mozilla.org/MPL/relicensing-faq.html [2] http://blog.gerv.net/2006/03/relicensing_complete/ On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:02 PM, David Woolley for...@david-woolley.me.uk wrote: One of the uses of CLA's is to allow the software to be re-licensed under a different open source licence. This can prove highly desirable, but almost impossible, if there are large numbers of contributions under the old licence. It might be needed because it has become important to integrate the work with work under and otherwise incompatible open source licence. In the past, I think it has been necessary to remove contributions from a minor contributor, to achieve this, because they were unable or unwilling to licence it under the new licence. (Something similar happened with OpenStreetmap's map database; some geographical features had to be removed because the project was unable to get permission to use it under a new, less restrictive, licence.) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 01/18/2015 02:57 PM, Radcliffe, Mark wrote: As Allison noted, most OSI approved licenses can be used for inbound use, but we do not take a position on that issue in approving licenses. [..] Thus, the approval of a license by OSI as meeting the criteria of the OSD does not reflect a review of the use of the license as inbound but only outbound. This is deeply concerning. Is OSI's position out of the sudden that it has approved some licenses which haven't been checked for compliance with #5, #6 and #7 for any person or entity receiving code? OSD contains exceptions, entities which the license might prohibit from incorporating or distributing code under that allegedly open license? That's plain illogical. It's like, when a developer licenses their work under an open license, the license wasn't reviewed for conformance with OSD, thus it might not grant the permissions to anyone receiving the software. But when you're a mere *LICENSEE* [with CLA] of that developer, then suddenly your purported license was reviewed for OSD conformance. (or if you're accumulating copyright, then your license somehow becomes reviewed) That doesn't make any sense. How is the open source license not good? How doesn't it give permissions set out in OSD? And WHY was it approved if it doesn't comply? I don't see in OSD #3 that the license may prohibit modifications and derivative works or distributing them under the same license, if you're for example Random J. Developer, writing and licensing your patch, and not a copyright accumulator of a kind or another. I don't know how is this under doubt. If, by licensing their code under an OSI-approved license, developers aren't giving permissions to any entity, then software developed without CLAs is under doubt. I guess the next thing is to see how long will OSI continue to use open source software developed without CLAs. Because, while OSI might think it has received open source software, if the project you got it from has an OSI-approved license from copyright holders, it wouldn't matter: the license itself *may not have given permission* to distribute in the first place. It might have been, who knows, one of those 'some' unspecified OSI-approved licenses that you suggest wouldn't work inbound=outbound. Different communities have different approaches Wanting more licenses is not, and cannot be, about *uncertainty* whether a license meets the OSD. Different entities have different reasons for wanting *additional* stuff. They might WANT to give another license to some or all, now or in the future, open source or proprietary. Therefore they *choose* to ask for another license. Or they might have policies for committers to repositories they host, therefore they might have an agreement for that. Or they might OFFER to enforce the license in a court of law for more or all copyrightable material in a work. Or they might want another license, and instead of being upfront about it, they attempt to place open source licensing under fear, uncertainty and doubt. But that Open Source Definition page out there sets the criteria according to which the license must conform, for any copyright holders to grant permissions to any entity receiving code under that license. Since when is OSI going back on that, and claims now that some entities might not receive these permissions for some OSI-approved licenses? the Apache Software Foundation uses specific CLAs for its projects Does ASF use CLAs /because/ AL2.0 is uncertain, it hasn't been checked whether it gives them the rights to reuse, modify, distribute the code they'd receive under it, under the conditions of AL2.0? FSF has long used an assignment approach Indeed, for some projects, and for some not. FSF's practice has (like ASF's) confused people, and both were (ab)used to further confusion. Regardless, does it follow from here that GPL might not be safe to use inbound, it might not give the permissions to copy, modify and further distribute derivative works of the code when an entity is receiving it under GPL? This is a non-sequitur, and shocking that OSI thinks it's okay to popularize it. (random signature...) -- Excuse me, Professor Lessig, may I ask you to sign this CLA, so we can *legally* have your permission to remix and distribute your CC-licensed works? ~ Permission culture, take two. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 01/18/2015 11:14 AM, Engel Nyst wrote: The relevant aspect here, seems to me, is that OSI's criteria for open source licenses *include* whether the *license used inbound* is giving rights to anyone receiving the software, as set out in the OSD. Anyone includes the project, a legal entity behind the project, the interest groups around a project, just like it includes individual users, recipients of the software from the original developer or project, etc. OSI criteria do this by OSD #5, #6 and #7. It is true that for the rights required by the OSD, those rights are granted to anyone who receives the software. OSD #3 is an even greater protector of inbound=outbound, since it requires that any open source license permit modification with redistribution under the same license. But, these facts don't guarantee that all open source licenses are appropriate for use as inbound=outbound, they only demonstrate that the licenses have *some* characteristics that fit with inbound=outbound. I wrote up an example of an open source license that has different legal effects when used inbound and outbound, but I've deleted it to avoid taking this thread down a rabbit hole. The key point is that inbound=outbound is a contribution policy, a specific use of an open source license within a particular context. OSI reviews the text of licenses, it doesn't review contribution policies. Allison ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
Allison Randal scripsit: If you want specific examples, I'd say GPL and Apache both work fine with inbound=outbound. GPL takes a position close to compelling inbound=outbound. Apache 2.0 was specifically designed with inbound=outbound in mind, you can see fingerprints of it all over the text. I cannot imagine any open source license (other than un-templated ones with hard-coded licensors) that *cannot* work as an inbound license. Does anyone have counterexamples? I totally support campaigning for inbound=outbound and DCO, What does DCO mean in this context? -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty. --Oscar Wilde ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 01/20/2015 12:09 PM, co...@ccil.org wrote: What does DCO mean in this context? Developer Certificate of Origin, as used by the Linux Kernel. It's essentially a way of being more explicit about an inbound=outbound contribution policy, by having each developer sign off that they acknowledge the policy with each commit. It's about half-way down the page on: https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/SubmittingPatches Allison ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 20/01/15 19:48, Engel Nyst wrote: Please do, though. It's worse to practically state that using an OSI approved license(s) doesn't seem to give the permissions necessary, within the bounds of the license, for anyone to combine one's project from different sources and distribute it. One of the uses of CLA's is to allow the software to be re-licensed under a different open source licence. This can prove highly desirable, but almost impossible, if there are large numbers of contributions under the old licence. It might be needed because it has become important to integrate the work with work under and otherwise incompatible open source licence. In the past, I think it has been necessary to remove contributions from a minor contributor, to achieve this, because they were unable or unwilling to licence it under the new licence. (Something similar happened with OpenStreetmap's map database; some geographical features had to be removed because the project was unable to get permission to use it under a new, less restrictive, licence.) Another common reason is that the open source project is being sponsored by a commercial organisation, which wants rights use the software in a proprietary way as well. They will not redistribute contributions which are not compatible with this. That is the case with Asterisk. In both cases, a third party can integrate their work without using a CLA, but they will have created a competing forked version, so their work is likely to much less well used than the official version. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 01/20/2015 03:24 PM, Ben Tilly wrote: A project using http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause has marketing comparing it to Foo's project Bar. But no prior written permission from Foo was obtained for this. If Foo looks at the project, notices a bug, and submits a patch under the same license, the project can't apply that patch without violating the license. I'm not sure I understand correctly. Isn't that intended behavior of the license? (assuming there was claim of endorsement) If I reuse code under BSD license, then I have to comply with the license. (That Foo submitted a patch or I take it myself doesn't seem to make a difference either.) -- Oracle corollary to Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to stupidity what can be adequately explained by malice. (~ adapted from Adam Borowski) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
David Woolley scripsit: It might be needed because it has become important to integrate the work with work under and otherwise incompatible open source licence. In the past, I think it has been necessary to remove contributions from a minor contributor, to achieve this, because they were unable or unwilling to licence it under the new licence. Or so people believe, anyway, and tend to act as if true. At least some people think that a co-author can relicense ad libitum at least under U.S. copyright law. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org Micropayment advocates mistakenly believe that efficient allocation of resources is the purpose of markets. Efficiency is a byproduct of market systems, not their goal. The reasons markets work are not because users have embraced efficiency but because markets are the best place to allow users to maximize their preferences, and very often their preferences are not for conservation of cheap resources. --Clay Shirky ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
Ben Tilly scripsit: A project using http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause has marketing comparing it to Foo's project Bar. I don't know that that counts as promoting or endorsing (that would be using the expat XML parser and claiming that James Clark approves of your coftware), but I see your point. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org You know, you haven't stopped talking since I came here. You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. --Rufus T. Firefly ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 20/01/15 14:14, Engel Nyst wrote: CLA stands for contributor *license* agreement. It's a non-exclusive license, plus some stuff. A non-exclusive licensee doesn't have standing for license enforcement. One needs to be copyright holder or exclusive licensee to pursue legal action. (in US) a) If that CLA includes the appropriate legal terminology and phrasing, the organization can pursue legal action, as the _agent_ of the copyright holder; b) If the CLA grants either full ownership of the copyright, or co-copyright owner status to the organization, using the appropriate legal terminology and phrasing, then the organization has the standing to pursue legal remedies on its own. It creates a nebulous feeling that maybe CLAs help too. I don't think they do. How helpful CLAs are, depends upon the specific legal issue(s) that are being addressed. jonathon -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJUv0xUAAoJEE1PKy9+kxplAH4QAK0Qj4iwg62PugccKz5+NzuX CLPHQjI2+yP1W1fOVJqr89MLp/vE0tcbH3MsL+2whuQVXKuy+NUwbikk70YmAI+F UEqc84oQtSWccBDs/NHwCrzh9wyXq7mnllK8JNeRA4lRxGBaaFFt3yVd9Avz7tZM xsYIWq02gYvEtfgytkQ+WVRZ1WQLCrjQXosj3wuMx0GXKTyt28cN4kTGvZJOy553 StTDpy7RmWJqblH91TqB/Cwel4Zo4TXYhAc/SI0yKAldb4mohFc6Ju0AdRMvT3jG +Eig5mA5RsoGjZCsmf6CAi2/xEVsvW/hK7qKrcJlDP+z7Pi75jB29ty2otZlDhyR 6aFv/XGSS1XOrjimYICqj4gPhMWl845ehwgnIPHxz+XX5NJJmRwN2SZr5jVWCJyR ZqrktwC6xjbdTYUVLtGFoLaUGg4+JQXPfBzy1BorpaJUjFEU7xi8enaZuh0IxrNP 7HLRM66CfMZdBpkH/sU+BIijvqFNDdrpJ+wLpZr1lJaeyuAL3HOv1Npcvi08ZZSd aCikxKV3a90fLHViIKCgAhXCzX2ZzBGh7bMLP8uuiT5PVsYJ3j0F2zzOMsJlvZdj 9r3mIFrKwq3amJu+ywudXHTdSX1nG9AXcAGXzcw030VABbVEYDxqu6cJ+a71F4mJ iV4qMu7RvRBQqkN5pxuC =mtqh -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 01/20/2015 10:46 AM, Engel Nyst wrote: That doesn't make any sense. How is the open source license not good? How doesn't it give permissions set out in OSD? And WHY was it approved if it doesn't comply? You're missing the point. The open source license is good, does give the permissions set out in the OSD, and does comply with the requirements of the OSD. But meeting one set of requirements for OSD doesn't guarantee it meets some other related set of requirements for inbound=outbound. A license isn't bad or anti-open source if it doesn't happen to work in an inbound=outbound contribution policy. If you want specific examples, I'd say GPL and Apache both work fine with inbound=outbound. GPL takes a position close to compelling inbound=outbound. Apache 2.0 was specifically designed with inbound=outbound in mind, you can see fingerprints of it all over the text. You're confusing no comment for opposition. OSI makes no comment on whether particular open source licenses are appropriate for use in an inbound=outbound contribution policy. That doesn't mean it's opposed to inbound=outbound. To take this in a more productive direction, you may be interested in some research I started last year, in which early results indicate that inbound=outbound is the most common contribution policy currently used for open source projects, and that DCO is regarded as substantially preferable to CLA or CAA. I still need to write up the study in more detail, but a couple of graphs I've produced so far are useful illustrations. Contribution policies developers have contributed under in the past: https://github.com/allisonrandal/contrib-policy-survey/blob/master/graphs/signed.png Contribution policies developers are willing to contribute under in the future: https://github.com/allisonrandal/contrib-policy-survey/blob/master/graphs/future.png I totally support campaigning for inbound=outbound and DCO, but the OSI FAQ pages aren't the right place to do it. Allison ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 01/20/2015 12:50 PM, Allison Randal wrote: I wrote up an example of an open source license that has different legal effects when used inbound and outbound, but I've deleted it to avoid taking this thread down a rabbit hole. Please do, though. It's worse to practically state that using an OSI approved license(s) doesn't seem to give the permissions necessary, within the bounds of the license, for anyone to combine one's project from different sources and distribute it. The key point is that inbound=outbound is a contribution policy, a specific use of an open source license within a particular context. OSI reviews the text of licenses, it doesn't review contribution policies. The issue here is simply that inbound=outbound must hold, because it's not a random contribution policy. OSD compliance is why it holds. -- Public works must serve a community. Open source licensing ensures the Tools are accessible to the world. We have not found any authority for the proposition that the world is a community within the meaning of 501(c)(3). (~US IRS) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] 3-clause BSD and reverse engineering
I'm curious as to the intent of this clause. If you're distributing the software binary-only and not making source code available, then it's not open source regardless of whether that clause is included. If you are providing source code, then what is the clause intended to prevent (i.e. why would anyone reverse engineer the binaries of they already have the source)? ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 01/17/2015 10:21 AM, Engel Nyst wrote: Reviewing doesn't seem to have anything to do with it indeed, but other than that I'm not sure I understand the difference you feel important here. An open source license is inbound or outbound depending only on the position /of the speaker/. There is no absolute direction, it's relative to the speaker. Am I looking at some code I wrote, or am I looking at code someone else wrote. Why is that relevant? There is probably no way to make a statement like this without taking a position, and the above does that. It's saying that inbound agreements are something else than open licenses, fulfill an unspecified need that open licenses don't. That open licenses are meant to be outbound (to whom?). That alone contributes to confusion about open source licensing. One cannot say that open licenses are meant to be outbound without implying that when you receive them (so inbound from your perspective) you may need something else. It's synonym with: they weren't meant to be received, they were only meant to be sent (?). They, well, might also work when you're at the receiving end, but weren't written for it. It also doesn't review the use of open source licenses as inbound=outbound. I honestly don't see how OSI can do otherwise than make a clear statement that the OSD guarantees all rights one needs to *receive* to be able to further copy, distribute, modify, include or make derivative works of, under the conditions of the respective open source license. Endorsing the distinction between inbound and outbound as if it was objectively meaningful, and placing open licenses on the outbound side is, in the best case, like saying: OSI reviews licenses to guarantee developers that they give the necessary rights to anyone, but it doesn't review if, as far as the license is concerned, you receive these rights. That doesn't make any sense to me. The distinction I'm making is between the act of contributing and the act of receiving. OSI's criteria for open source licenses doesn't include any review of whether the license used inbound would be respectful of developers' rights and desires for the use of their code, encourage healthy collaboration in the community of developers, allow for ongoing maintenance of an established codebase by an ever-changing group of developers, empower groups who want to do active GPL enforcement, etc, etc. There are an array of attributes of healthy open source projects related to intellectual property that the Open Source Definition just doesn't cover. It focuses on protecting the rights of users (recipients of the code). A single legal document is perfectly adequate to cover both contribution and receiving, and I expect any license OSI has approved would be fine used inbound=outbound. But when OSI approves a license it is only making a statement that the license meets the outbound criteria of the OSD. Allison ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 01/17/2015 01:57 PM, Allison Randal wrote: OSI's criteria for open source licenses doesn't include any review of whether the *license used inbound* would be respectful of developers' rights and desires for the use of their code, encourage healthy collaboration in the community of developers, allow for ongoing maintenance of an established codebase by an ever-changing group of developers, empower groups who want to do active GPL enforcement, etc, etc. [my emphasis] I see your point. I agree these issues are not part of a review for OSD compliance. The relevant aspect here, seems to me, is that OSI's criteria for open source licenses *include* whether the *license used inbound* is giving rights to anyone receiving the software, as set out in the OSD. Anyone includes the project, a legal entity behind the project, the interest groups around a project, just like it includes individual users, recipients of the software from the original developer or project, etc. OSI criteria do this by OSD #5, #6 and #7. A single legal document is perfectly adequate to cover both contribution and receiving, and I expect any license OSI has approved would be fine used inbound=outbound. But when OSI approves a license it is only making a statement that the license meets the outbound criteria of the OSD. From the above, it follows that when OSI approves a license, it is making a statement that the license meets the criteria of the OSD, *whether used inbound or outbound*. (Therefore, I don't guess it would be fine used inbound=outbound. It is fine. It *has* to be. Solely from the perspective of the rights set out in OSD, that is.) -- ~ We like to think of our forums as a Free-Speech Zone. And freedom works best at the point of a bayonet. (Amazon, Inc.) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
Engel Nyst scripsit: There is probably no way to make a statement like this without taking a position, and the above does that. It's saying that inbound agreements are something else than open licenses, fulfill an unspecified need that open licenses don't. That open licenses are meant to be outbound (to whom?). That alone contributes to confusion about open source licensing. While I agree with what you are saying (there is no reason why any open source license can't be used as a contributor agreement, and some projects actually work that way), there is a fundamental difference between the FSF's CLA and the GPL, namely that the CLA is not a *public* license. Open source licenses grant things to whomever has the source code; a CLA normally grants things (anything up to full copyright ownership) only to the party they are addressed to. We could say that implicit requirement 0 of the OSD is that the object of discussion is a public software license. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org You're a brave man! Go and break through the lines, and remember while you're out there risking life and limb through shot and shell, we'll be in here thinking what a sucker you are!--Rufus T. Firefly ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 01/16/2015 08:02 PM, Allison Randal wrote: The text is out-of-date, and wrong in some places. OSI is in the process of a refresh on the whole site, updating or removing a lot of old cruft, and this will get swept as part of it. That's good to hear, thank you. If OSI wants to discuss or inform the larger community about CLAs, this doesn't seem accurate language for doing so. I'm not convinced that OSI needs to explain contributor agreements. We do periodically get asked to review contributor agreements, so it's important to have some kind of statement making it clear that OSI reviews *outbound* open source licenses, and not *inbound* agreements. It also doesn't review the use of open source licenses as inbound=outbound. Reviewing doesn't seem to have anything to do with it indeed, but other than that I'm not sure I understand the difference you feel important here. An open source license is inbound or outbound depending only on the position /of the speaker/. There is no absolute direction, it's relative to the speaker. Am I looking at some code I wrote, or am I looking at code someone else wrote. Why is that relevant? There is probably no way to make a statement like this without taking a position, and the above does that. It's saying that inbound agreements are something else than open licenses, fulfill an unspecified need that open licenses don't. That open licenses are meant to be outbound (to whom?). That alone contributes to confusion about open source licensing. One cannot say that open licenses are meant to be outbound without implying that when you receive them (so inbound from your perspective) you may need something else. It's synonym with: they weren't meant to be received, they were only meant to be sent (?). They, well, might also work when you're at the receiving end, but weren't written for it. It also doesn't review the use of open source licenses as inbound=outbound. I honestly don't see how OSI can do otherwise than make a clear statement that the OSD guarantees all rights one needs to *receive* to be able to further copy, distribute, modify, include or make derivative works of, under the conditions of the respective open source license. Endorsing the distinction between inbound and outbound as if it was objectively meaningful, and placing open licenses on the outbound side is, in the best case, like saying: OSI reviews licenses to guarantee developers that they give the necessary rights to anyone, but it doesn't review if, as far as the license is concerned, you receive these rights. That doesn't make any sense to me. -- Excuse me, Professor Lessig, may I ask you to sign this CLA, so we can *legally* have your permission to remix and distribute your CC-licensed works? ~ Permission culture, take two. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] 3-clause BSD and reverse engineering
On 01/16/2015 07:44 AM, Zluty Sysel wrote: Reverse engineering, decompilation, and/or disassembly of software provided in binary form under this license is prohibited. I'm wondering why you want this clause. Is the software in source form available under BSD or do you intend to make it available under this license? What purpose would this clause for the binary version solve? -- Public works must serve a community. Open source licensing ensures the Tools are accessible to the world. We have not found any authority for the proposition that the world is a community within the meaning of 501(c)(3). (~US IRS) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
John Cowan wrote: Open source licenses grant things to whomever has the source code; Do you mean grant things to whomever accepts the terms and conditions of the license? /Larry -Original Message- From: John Cowan [mailto:co...@mercury.ccil.org] Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2015 12:00 PM To: license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs Engel Nyst scripsit: There is probably no way to make a statement like this without taking a position, and the above does that. It's saying that inbound agreements are something else than open licenses, fulfill an unspecified need that open licenses don't. That open licenses are meant to be outbound (to whom?). That alone contributes to confusion about open source licensing. While I agree with what you are saying (there is no reason why any open source license can't be used as a contributor agreement, and some projects actually work that way), there is a fundamental difference between the FSF's CLA and the GPL, namely that the CLA is not a *public* license. Open source licenses grant things to whomever has the source code; a CLA normally grants things (anything up to full copyright ownership) only to the party they are addressed to. We could say that implicit requirement 0 of the OSD is that the object of discussion is a public software license. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org You're a brave man! Go and break through the lines, and remember while you're out there risking life and limb through shot and shell, we'll be in here thinking what a sucker you are!--Rufus T. Firefly ___ 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] FAQ entry on CLAs
Lawrence Rosen scripsit: Open source licenses grant things to whomever has the source code; Do you mean grant things to whomever accepts the terms and conditions of the license? Well, for some licenses. The BSD licenses don't appear to require any sort of acceptance: they just say We grant you the rights to do X provided A and B are the case and C is not the case. That doesn't sound in contract as far as I can see: it's got the flavor of a bare license to trespass on land. [.sig below chosen at random!] -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past. --Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 01/17/2015 03:00 PM, John Cowan wrote: Engel Nyst scripsit: There is probably no way to make a statement like this without taking a position, and the above does that. It's saying that inbound agreements are something else than open licenses, fulfill an unspecified need that open licenses don't. That open licenses are meant to be outbound (to whom?). That alone contributes to confusion about open source licensing. While I agree with what you are saying (there is no reason why any open source license can't be used as a contributor agreement, and some projects actually work that way), there is a fundamental difference between the FSF's CLA and the GPL, namely that the CLA is not a *public* license. Open source licenses grant things to whomever has the source code; a CLA normally grants things (anything up to full copyright ownership) only to the party they are addressed to. We could say that implicit requirement 0 of the OSD is that the object of discussion is a public software license. I would set CAAs a bit aside for the discussion, because they're not licenses at all. CLAs are licenses. I agree with this remark. But doesn't it mean, in other words, that a CLA is a *proprietary* license? It doesn't grant rights to anyone getting the software, it excludes everyone except a named entity. -- ~ We like to think of our forums as a Free-Speech Zone. And freedom works best at the point of a bayonet. (Amazon, Inc.) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] 3-clause BSD and reverse engineering
Hi there, I was wondering if adding a clause to prevent reverse engineering to the standard 3-clause BSD license would violate any of the open source definition tenets. The additional clause would read something like this: Reverse engineering, decompilation, and/or disassembly of software provided in binary form under this license is prohibited. I can't really see anything in the Open Source Definition that would forbid the inclusion of such a clause, but I wanted to check with people with more experience in the matter than myself. Thank you in advance. Zluty ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 01/16/2015 05:48 AM, Engel Nyst wrote: I'd like to open a discussion about fixing this text. The text is out-of-date, and wrong in some places. OSI is in the process of a refresh on the whole site, updating or removing a lot of old cruft, and this will get swept as part of it. If OSI wants to discuss or inform the larger community about CLAs, this doesn't seem accurate language for doing so. I'm not convinced the OSI needs to explain contributor agreements. But, we do periodically get asked to review contributor agreements, so it's important to have some kind of statement making it clear that the OSI reviews *outbound* open source licenses, and not *inbound* agreements of any kind. Allison ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
On 01/16/2015 05:48 AM, Engel Nyst wrote: I'd like to open a discussion about fixing this text. The text is out-of-date, and wrong in some places. OSI is in the process of a refresh on the whole site, updating or removing a lot of old cruft, and this will get swept as part of it. If OSI wants to discuss or inform the larger community about CLAs, this doesn't seem accurate language for doing so. I'm not convinced that OSI needs to explain contributor agreements. We do periodically get asked to review contributor agreements, so it's important to have some kind of statement making it clear that OSI reviews *outbound* open source licenses, and not *inbound* agreements. It also doesn't review the use of open source licenses as inbound=outbound. Allison ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] 3-clause BSD and reverse engineering
On Friday 16. January 2015 13.44, Zluty Sysel wrote: I was wondering if adding a clause to prevent reverse engineering to the standard 3-clause BSD license would violate any of the open source definition tenets. The additional clause would read something like this: Reverse engineering, decompilation, and/or disassembly of software provided in binary form under this license is prohibited. See section 3 of the Open Source Definition: http://opensource.org/osd === 3. Derived Works The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software. === My understanding is that your additional clause would violate that definition, and no longer qualify as Open Source. -- Johnny A. Solbu web site, http://www.solbu.net PGP key ID: 0xFA687324 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs
Hello license-discuss, OSI FAQ page has an entry on CLAs: What are contributor license agreements? Are they the same thing with open licenses?. As a historical note, according to webarchive, the entry has appeared in June-July 2013, although there is no mention on it on (public) mailing lists at the time. The answer to this question contains both expected things, and unexpected things. Just some quick notes on the answer as written. It says many open source projects use these agreements. I have to dispute the implied suggestion that there are more than not. Contributor agreements are not open source licenses -- rather, they are a way for the contributor to tell the project that it has the right to distribute the new contributions under the project's existing open source license. But an open source license does this: by licensing their modifications under the license of the project, developers tell the project that it has the right to distribute those modifications under the project's existing open source license. The implication here is that there is a necessity of some kind for a contributor to tell the project through a CLA that it has the right to distribute under the existing open source license. A necessity that the open license doesn't fulfill. That is a very unfortunate implication, and I suggest OSI to remove such language from its official pages. It continues with (Some contributor agreements also allow for the project to distribute the contributions under other open source licenses too[...]). This explicative parenthesis seems to imply that most agreements are inbound-outbound, which is probably not the case with CLAs. (unless here it was meant DCOs, but that acronym isn't present) In a Contributor License Agreement (CLA), the original contributor retains copyright ownership of their contributions, but grants the project a broad set of rights such that the project can incorporate and distribute the contributions as it needs to. It's unclear to me what is meant by this. Does this mean that the entity behind the project /wants/ to license under other licenses than the open source license of the project, or does it suggest that the project /needs/ CLAs to do its incorporation and distribution of code under the open source license it has? The ambiguity has the effect of implying the second and obscuring the first. With both CLAs and CAAs, it is of course necessary that 'the project' be some kind of legal entity able to enter into agreements. This sounds right, but incomplete. While a loose association might not be appropriate, an individual can be. a for-profit corporation [...] requests contributor agreements in order to manage the development community I don't know what this means. Is it trying to say a for-profit corp needs to know the identities of developers, or that community management gets mysteriously easier to do when you have more copyright rights? Also, the text links to http://wiki.civiccommons.org/Contributor_Agreements, which no longer exists. I'd like to open a discussion about fixing this text. If OSI wants to discuss or inform the larger community about CLAs, this doesn't seem accurate language for doing so. Overall, the text strikes me as false neutrality. It posits CLAs as something many do, apparently naturally occurring, it contains implications that they somehow fulfill a need of a project to be able to incorporate and distribute code under the open license it has (!), it links only to (inactive) project Harmony and a dead link, it doesn't contain any warnings about asymmetry and pitfalls associated with them, it doesn't contain analysis and opposing arguments. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. -- Oracle corollary to Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to stupidity what can be adequately explained by malice. (~ adapted from Adam Borowski) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] BSD license, source distributions and interpretations of retain
On 10/01/15 18:16, Michael Bradley wrote: Now suppose Project B’s source code is derived from Project A’s source code, but the maintainer of Project B wishes to use a different license. What do you mean by use? Do you mean use a different license for project B when distributed as a whole, or do you mean actively prevent bits of project A which are in, and have been modified by, project B from being used under the license of project A (e.g. by reincorporation into the upstream)? In an effort to avoid confusion, Project B has that different license text at the head of each of its source code files, while Project A's original license text has been moved off to a file bundled in Project B's source distributions, e.g. “licenses/ORIGINAL-PROJECTA-LICENSE.txt”. Would that be in compliance with the “retain” language in clause #1 of the 3-Clause BSD license? Clause 1 and Clause 2 are differently worded; clause 2 says in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution, and clause 1 does not. That suggests to me that clause 1 therefore is _not_ satisfied with in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution, if that's not the case already for the source in question, but needs to be left on each file. Is there any case law to that effect or to the contrary? References to legal write-ups on this question (or similar) would be appreciated. I can't help you with actual legal advice, I'm afraid. Gerv ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] BSD license, source distributions and interpretations of retain
On 2015-01-10 at 12:16:04, Michael Bradley wrote: Would that be in compliance with the “retain” language in clause #1 of the 3-Clause BSD license? Is there any case law to that effect or to the contrary? References to legal write-ups on this question (or similar) would be appreciated. This may be useful: https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/gpl-non-gpl-collaboration.html Francois -- Francois Marier identi.ca/fmarier http://fmarier.org twitter.com/fmarier ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] BSD license, source distributions and interpretations of retain
Suppose Project A is licensed under 3-Clause BSD, and includes that license text at the head of each of its source code files. Now suppose Project B’s source code is derived from Project A’s source code, but the maintainer of Project B wishes to use a different license. In an effort to avoid confusion, Project B has that different license text at the head of each of its source code files, while Project A's original license text has been moved off to a file bundled in Project B's source distributions, e.g. “licenses/ORIGINAL-PROJECTA-LICENSE.txt”. Would that be in compliance with the “retain” language in clause #1 of the 3-Clause BSD license? Is there any case law to that effect or to the contrary? References to legal write-ups on this question (or similar) would be appreciated. Best regards, -- Michael Bradley, Jr. @michaelsbradley ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] BSD license, source distributions and interpretations of retain
On 10/01/15 18:16, Michael Bradley wrote: Now suppose Project B’s source code is derived from Project A’s source code, but the maintainer of Project B wishes to use a different license. In an effort to avoid confusion, Project B has that different license text at the head of each of its source code files, while Project A's original license text has been moved off to a file bundled in Project B's source distributions, e.g. “licenses/ORIGINAL-PROJECTA-LICENSE.txt”. Would that be in compliance with the “retain” language in clause #1 of the 3-Clause BSD license? Is there any case law to that effect or to the contrary? References to legal write-ups on this question (or similar) would be appreciated. This is not legal advice, but in my opinion the least B could get away with is the inclusion of a reference to the file in the source files derived from A, and possibly also a statement that the file cannot be redistributed without the licences file. Especially given the shortness of the BSD licence, I would think the community expectation would be that the source file contained the text of both licences, indicating who owned the copyrights under each. The paragon would be to also identify in the code which bits came under which copyright. If B had not created any new copyright in the file, e.g. they did no more than change some customisation parameter, I would say the file should only contain A's copyright notice, and licence terms. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Public domain license - Public Domain Customized
On 04/12/14 17:57, Joe Kua wrote: I wish to release my software in public domain including giving explicit patent grants. Is Public Domain Customized a good license to choose ? NOTE 1: None of these license texts should be used as a license until further notice! These texts are works in development and are not ready for use by the general public. https://github.com/asaunders/public-domain-customized So I'd say no :-) Gerv ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Public domain license - Public Domain Customized
On 04/12/14 17:57, Joe Kua wrote: I wish to release my software in public domain including giving explicit patent grants. Is Public Domain Customized a good license to choose ? There is no such thing as a public domain licence. The documents are combinations of an attempt to abandon copyright, meaning you can't licence, and a, fallback, licence that attempts to give away as many rights as possible, even though you still own the copyright and moral rights. If you didn't want patent rights, why did you patent it in the first place? Actually there might be a good reason in that the existence of a patent might be more reliable than publishing your invention in establishing prior art, and therefore blocking another patent. However, I think there is no way of abandoning a patent once you have acquired it. In most countries, including the UK, an attempt to abandon copyright will fail; if you want to put something in the public domain, you must die and then wait 70 years. Many question whether anyone except the federal government can abandon it in the USA. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] Public domain license - Public Domain Customized
Hi, I wish to release my software in public domain including giving explicit patent grants. Is Public Domain Customized a good license to choose ? https://github.com/asaunders/public-domain-customized https://github.com/asaunders/public-domain-customized/blob/master/Custom%20Dedication:%20Open%20Source Are there any issues with using the license ? Is anyone using the license ? Regards. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Wikipedia Content
Henri, this issue keeps coming up here! On your behalf and on behalf of other curious readers here on this list, I will ask our Creative Commons friends your question: Is the CC-SA license GPL-like? Boldly presaging their answer, I will equivocate: Yes and no. Yes, it requires reciprocation by anyone who creates an Adaptation of the CC-BY work. No, it doesn't require anything more onerous than the Apache License for the mere incorporation of that work into a Collection. Apache's rule should state that any Apache project can incorporate CC-BY components into an Apache Collection. Apache projects can also *adapt* such works, but then our *adapted* versions *of the CC-BY components* must be under CC-BY. As for the risk to downstream users, there is none as long as they do not themselves create an Adaptation *of the CC-BY components* distributed in the Apache Collection but ignore the reciprocity requirement of CC-BY. That is why we create a NOTICE file with each Apache Collection. To be practical, I can't imagine a situation where Wikipedia content under CC-BY would matter much anyway to any downstream user of an Apache Collection. Such components are easy for distributors to remove or leave alone. Let's not allow confusion over license terms overrule the obvious. As to its literary comparison to GPLv2: The Creative Commons folks have eliminated GPL-like confusion in their licenses. Their licenses are clearer, less ambiguous, understood around the world, and do not confuse people with terms like static and dynamic linking or combining or baking code into other code that have influenced the software industry for far too long. [FWIW, if it weren't for the rampant and self-inflicted confusion about linking with GPLv2 components, I would recommend that ASF also allow such GPL components in our Apache Collections. Of course Apache projects would have to be careful when they create Adaptations of such works and the NOTICE files would become even more relevant to some downstream users who are themselves distributors. Fortunately, I don't have to bring the GPLv2 or GPLv3 licenses up today.] As long as we understand what Creative Commons and Apache Software Foundation both mean by *Adaptation* and *Collection* then we can safely use Creative Commons components. /Larry The following definitions in CC-SA are important: Adaptation means a work based upon the Work, or upon the Work and other pre-existing works, such as a translation, adaptation, derivative work, arrangement of music or other alterations of a literary or artistic work, or phonogram or performance and includes cinematographic adaptations or any other form in which the Work may be recast, transformed, or adapted including in any form recognizably derived from the original, except that a work that constitutes a Collection will not be considered an Adaptation for the purpose of this License. For the avoidance of doubt, where the Work is a musical work, performance or phonogram, the synchronization of the Work in timed-relation with a moving image (synching) will be considered an Adaptation for the purpose of this License. Collection means a collection of literary or artistic works, such as encyclopedias and anthologies, or performances, phonograms or broadcasts, or other works or subject matter other than works listed in Section 1(f) below, which, by reason of the selection and arrangement of their contents, constitute intellectual creations, in which the Work is included in its entirety in unmodified form along with one or more other contributions, each constituting separate and independent works in themselves, which together are assembled into a collective whole. A work that constitutes a Collection will not be considered an Adaptation (as defined below) for the purposes of this License. Cc: Creative Commons From: Henri Yandell [mailto:bay...@apache.org] Sent: Monday, December 1, 2014 9:00 AM To: lro...@rosenlaw.com Subject: Re: Wikipedia Content snip ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Wikipedia Content
Lawrence Rosen scripsit: Henri, this issue keeps coming up here! On your behalf and on behalf of other curious readers here on this list, I will ask our Creative Commons friends your question: Is the CC-SA license GPL-like? [snip] Yes, it requires reciprocation by anyone who creates an Adaptation of the CC-BY work. No, it doesn't require anything more onerous than the Apache License for the mere incorporation of that work into a Collection. Are you talking about CC-BY or CC-(BY-)-SA? -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org You cannot enter here. Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go! --Gandalf ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Wikipedia Content
Sorry, I meant CC-SA throughout! Brain hiccup happened. /Larry -Original Message- From: John Cowan [mailto:co...@mercury.ccil.org] Sent: Monday, December 1, 2014 5:41 PM To: lro...@rosenlaw.com; license-discuss@opensource.org Cc: 'Kat Walsh' Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Wikipedia Content Lawrence Rosen scripsit: Henri, this issue keeps coming up here! On your behalf and on behalf of other curious readers here on this list, I will ask our Creative Commons friends your question: Is the CC-SA license GPL-like? [snip] Yes, it requires reciprocation by anyone who creates an Adaptation of the CC-BY work. No, it doesn't require anything more onerous than the Apache License for the mere incorporation of that work into a Collection. Are you talking about CC-BY or CC-(BY-)-SA? -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org You cannot enter here. Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go! --Gandalf ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Why CAVO Recommends GPLv3
On 14/11/14 19:55, Tzeng, Nigel H. wrote: In our case the majority of the software being evaluated for open sourcing is framework and utility functions that we believe would provide value to our community. We wish to insure that this framework remains open source and commonly used but that all entities involved (including us) are free to make proprietary plugins to extend the functionality. Whether GPL V3 with a plugin exception or LGPL or MPL is the right answer remains to be seen. Surely putting proprietary bits onto a voting platform defeats the entire point? You may disagree on strategy with Larry, of course. But if one is convinced that voting software needs to be open source as a fundamental matter of transparency for the voters, then there's no need to choose a license which permits the addition of proprietary bits. In fact, it's an anti-goal. Gerv ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Why CAVO Recommends GPLv3
Gerv, Without knowing how OSET intends to design their software or what vendors provide today it¹s hard for me to say. As long as the core vote counting and verification bits are open source and can be externally verified then one vendor providing more vote planning aids, analytics, financial tracking and collaboration tools are part of their comprehensive suite as a competitive advantage doesn¹t bother me overly much. They do have to make money somehow and have some kind of positive ROI for developing software systems. That it¹s open source is a false sense of security. Just because it¹s open and important doesn¹t guarantee there are all that many white hat eyeballs looking at it for defects. There has been some rather widely reported instances where the ³given enough eyeballs² part of the equation simply was never met. I would rather see voting software that has passed a rigorous IVV process and formal proof of correctness for key bits. This is expensive and difficult to replicate fully in an ad-hoc fashion since it requires a skill set most folks, even most programmers, don¹t have. As far as being an anti-goal it depends on whether CAVO can demand that all voting systems be GPL V3 or only recommend vendors to use GPL V3 if they are open source at all. If they cannot compel vendors to provide complete open source solutions then the strategy of having an open source requirement for just the important parts via a weak copyleft and not for the entire package as required by a viral copyleft may be advantageous. Even better is a reference implementation licensed under a weak copyleft was provided as the common core piece of voting software. As long as the vendor can prove (and perhaps even in the formal sense) that their proprietary portions don¹t adversely impact that common framework under LGPL or MPL then that¹s a win over companies rejecting an open source request outright because of overreach. There is a point where companies simply wont give all their IP away in the hopes that they get the support contract. And if their product is far more compelling and useful than a GPL V3 solution then they simply will get purchased and used despite any advantages of open source solutions over closed. Open vs closed is just one trade off among many. Regards, Nigel On 11/17/14, 8:56 AM, Gervase Markham g...@mozilla.org wrote: On 14/11/14 19:55, Tzeng, Nigel H. wrote: In our case the majority of the software being evaluated for open sourcing is framework and utility functions that we believe would provide value to our community. We wish to insure that this framework remains open source and commonly used but that all entities involved (including us) are free to make proprietary plugins to extend the functionality. Whether GPL V3 with a plugin exception or LGPL or MPL is the right answer remains to be seen. Surely putting proprietary bits onto a voting platform defeats the entire point? You may disagree on strategy with Larry, of course. But if one is convinced that voting software needs to be open source as a fundamental matter of transparency for the voters, then there's no need to choose a license which permits the addition of proprietary bits. In fact, it's an anti-goal. Gerv ___ 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] Why CAVO Recommends GPLv3
On 17/11/14 15:02, Tzeng, Nigel H. wrote: As long as the core vote counting and verification bits are open source and can be externally verified then one vendor providing more vote planning aids, analytics, financial tracking and collaboration tools are part of their comprehensive suite as a competitive advantage doesn¹t bother me overly much. They do have to make money somehow and have some kind of positive ROI for developing software systems. It depends how it was designed, but none of that would necessarily fall under GPLv3 just because the software which handled the votes did. That it¹s open source is a false sense of security. Not false. It's a necessary condition for security but not a sufficient one. simply was never met. I would rather see voting software that has passed a rigorous IVV process and formal proof of correctness for key bits. These two things are not mutually exclusive. Gerv ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Another CACF patent case
The concurrence's language on 101 is indeed very strong, although not binding; and would appear to thread the needle in a way that allows the few genuinely innovative software patents while throwing out the vast majority of them — an approach the Supreme Court had called for but not provided much guidance on. Is anyone keeping an actively updated scorecard of the post-Alice 101 rulings? Has *any* internet/software patent survived a post-Alice 101 challenge yet? Luis On Mon Nov 17 2014 at 3:51:58 AM Lawrence Rosen lro...@rosenlaw.com wrote: Another U.S. software patent bites the dust. For those of you who are eagerly following the post-*Alice *software patent situation in the U.S., the attached concurring opinion by Judge Mayer in *Ultramercial v. Hulu and Wildtangent* will give you heart. For those of you who are patent attorneys, the concurring opinion will give you heartburn. The concurring opinion is attached to this email. The entire decision is at http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions-orders/10-1544.Opinion.11-12-2014.1.PDF. /Larry - To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscr...@apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-h...@apache.org ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] Why CAVO Recommends GPLv3
To: License-Discuss@ [This email is CC-BY.] The California Association of Voting Officials (CAVO) asked me to help them evaluate FOSS licenses for election software. Below is my article for the CAVO newsletter. You can read the entire CAVO newsletter at http://www.cavo-us.org/Newsletter/newsletter1.html. Please direct any comments or questions or support to cavocont...@gmail.com mailto:cavocont...@gmail.com . /Larry ** Why CAVO Recommends GPLv3 by Lawrence Rosen There are many ways to distribute software. Valuable software nowadays is usually distributed under a free and open source license (FOSS license, in short), both because it is usually free of cost software but also free of restrictions on copying, making changes, and redistributing that software. There are various open source licenses to choose from. They are listed at the www.opensource.org http://www.opensource.org website. Unless a license is listed at that website, most developers and potential customers won't call it FOSS software. The OSET Foundation Public License (OPL), a license recently proposed for an election software project, is not a FOSS license. [1] FOSS licenses offer several distinct ways to give software away. Choosing among those licenses for software is not an arbitrary game of darts. For open source election software that can be trusted and always free, the choice of license is particularly important. That is why CAVO recommends the General Public License version 3.0 (GPLv3) as the best license to use. This article gives several important reasons why. * Among the many FOSS licenses, GPLv3 is the most modern, widely accepted, and best understood license available today. Its predecessor license, GPLv2, is historically far and away the most used worldwide; GPLv3 is replacing it in the rate of license adoption for new FOSS software. * GPLv3 is a reciprocal license. Once a project or distributor releases election software under the GPLv3, it will remain FOSS software in perpetuity under the GPLv3 license. Modifications to that FOSS software will also be distributed in perpetuity under the GPLv3. This guarantees that our election software won't ever be taken under commercial covers and turned into proprietary software with unacceptable lock-in and source code restrictions that make voting untrustworthy. * The GPLv3 license promotes open and shared development efforts. While it is possible to create excellent open source software under more permissive FOSS licenses, those licenses allow commercial fragmentation of the software. That isn't appropriate for widely used election software. * The GPLv3 encourages trustworthy software. There is a law of software development named in honor of Linus Torvalds stating that given enough eyeballs, all http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug bugs are shallow; or more formally: Given a large enough http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_test beta-tester and co- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmer developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix will be obvious to someone. [2] GPLv3 software projects invite eyeballs on all distributed versions of the software to identify bugs and security issues; other licenses don't always do that. * Although GPLv3 will specifically encourage FOSS development practices for the election code base and its derivative works, that GPLv3 license is nevertheless compatible with successful commercial software and support business as well. One need only refer to the robust Linux ecosystem and its contribution to diverse commercial technology worldwide, whose basic software is entirely under the GPLv2 and GPLv3 licenses. The GPL licenses made that possible. * GPLv3 will encourage innovation because GPLv3 source code is open to view and change. For these reasons, CAVO recommends that election software be distributed under GPLv3. This will inevitably create a diverse, worldwide, and enthusiastic community of software developers to create election systems we can all trust. Footnotes: [1] The OSET Foundation claim on their website that their license is an open source software license is simply untrue. They can try to make it so by submitting their license to www.opensource.org http://www.opensource.org and following OSI's published license review process. While I am merely an observer nowadays of that license review and approval process, as former general counsel for OSI I am confident that certain provisions in that license make it incompatible with the GPLv3 despite the assertion on OSET's own website that it is. http://static.squarespace.com/static/528d46a2e4b059766439fa8b/t/53558db1e4b0 191d0dc6912c/1398115761233/OPL_FAQ_Apr14.pdf [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus's_Law Lawrence Rosen Rosenlaw Einschlag (www.rosenlaw.com http://www.rosenlaw.com/ ) (C) 2014 Lawrence Rosen
Re: [License-discuss] Why CAVO Recommends GPLv3
Larry, Interesting article, and timely since I am in the process of determining if GPL V3 is the proper license to recommend for some work we are doing. I’m not certain that I would agree that GPL V3 is the right license to advocate for CAVO given that the original copyright holder retains immense competitive advantage. It can provide proprietary extensions and no one else can without a commercial license it is not obligated to provide. If the project is managed so that modifications to the official code base must go through a CLA that provides the original company world-wide non-exclusive perpetual right to use, copy, modify, etc then GPL V3 is no more protective than Apache from the original copyright holder. If the proprietary extensions from that company are compelling then vendor lock-in remains. Especially if their version is the most advanced and active. To make this work CAVO members would have to require that all election solutions have no proprietary extensions from anyone. In which case the strong copyleft nature of a license is irrelevant. An MPL derived license like OPL (if it really is MPL derived, I did not look closely at it) all companies are on a more equal footing and you retain the benefits of a common open source core platform for electronic voting software while permitting all companies the opportunity to provide some competitive advantages to the customer. In our case the majority of the software being evaluated for open sourcing is framework and utility functions that we believe would provide value to our community. We wish to insure that this framework remains open source and commonly used but that all entities involved (including us) are free to make proprietary plugins to extend the functionality. Whether GPL V3 with a plugin exception or LGPL or MPL is the right answer remains to be seen. I have the same goals from the perspective of valuing broad adoption while minimizing the risk of “being forked wholesale and appropriated into proprietary systems”. It appears to me that OPL would fit in the same category as NOSA and EPL v2 if it’s a MPL derivative with special clauses for government procurement. Maybe there is something sinister hidden in there but conceptually it seems reasonable. Especially if it retains the MPL 2.0 compatibility clauses. I’m curious, do you know why they haven’t submitted it for approval? Regards, Nigel From: Lawrence Rosen lro...@rosenlaw.commailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com Reply-To: lro...@rosenlaw.commailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com lro...@rosenlaw.commailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com, License Discuss license-discuss@opensource.orgmailto:license-discuss@opensource.org Date: Friday, November 14, 2014 at 11:06 AM To: License Discuss license-discuss@opensource.orgmailto:license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: [License-discuss] Why CAVO Recommends GPLv3 To: License-Discuss@ [This email is CC-BY.] The California Association of Voting Officials (CAVO) asked me to help them evaluate FOSS licenses for election software. Below is my article for the CAVO newsletter. You can read the entire CAVO newsletter at http://www.cavo-us.org/Newsletter/newsletter1.html. Please direct any comments or questions or support to cavocont...@gmail.commailto:cavocont...@gmail.com. /Larry ** Why CAVO Recommends GPLv3 by Lawrence Rosen There are many ways to distribute software. Valuable software nowadays is usually distributed under a free and open source license (FOSS license, in short), both because it is usually free of cost software but also free of restrictions on copying, making changes, and redistributing that software. There are various open source licenses to choose from. They are listed at the www.opensource.orghttp://www.opensource.org website. Unless a license is listed at that website, most developers and potential customers won't call it FOSS software. The OSET Foundation Public License (OPL), a license recently proposed for an election software project, is not a FOSS license. [1] FOSS licenses offer several distinct ways to give software away. Choosing among those licenses for software is not an arbitrary game of darts. For open source election software that can be trusted and always free, the choice of license is particularly important. That is why CAVO recommends the General Public License version 3.0 (GPLv3) as the best license to use. This article gives several important reasons why. · Among the many FOSS licenses, GPLv3 is the most modern, widely accepted, and best understood license available today. Its predecessor license, GPLv2, is historically far and away the most used worldwide; GPLv3 is replacing it in the rate of license adoption for new FOSS software. · GPLv3 is a reciprocal license. Once a project or distributor releases election software under the GPLv3, it will remain FOSS software in perpetuity under the GPLv3 license. Modifications
[License-discuss] Conservancy FSF announce copyleft.org
The announcement below may be of interest to subscribers of this list. I apologize in advance if it's not. -- bkuhn ## URLs Related to this Announcement: Conservancy Announcement: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2014/nov/07/copyleft-org/ FSF Announcement: http://fsf.org/news/software-freedom-conservancy-and-free-software-foundation-announce-copyleft.org Copyleft.org: https://copyleft.org copyleft.org Mailing Lists: https://lists.copyleft.org/ Pristine CCS Example: http://copyleft.guide/pristine-example/ Announcement on Twitter: https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/530759451989786624 Pump.io/Identi.ca: https://identi.ca/conservancy/note/qSdiuSFaRuqrqO5lULbNZg ## Conservancy and FSF announce copyleft.org Copyleft Guide Now Includes a Pristine CCS Example Analysis Software Freedom Conservancy and the Free Software Foundation announce today an ongoing public project that began in early 2014: *Copyleft and the GNU General Public License: A Comprehensive Tutorial and Guide*, and the publication of that project in its new home on the Internet at copyleft.org. This new site will not only provide a venue for those who constantly update and improve the Comprehensive Tutorial, but is also now home to a collaborative community to share and improve information about copyleft licenses (especially the GNU General Public License (GPL)) and best compliance practices for those licenses. Bradley M. Kuhn, President and Distinguished Technologist of Software Freedom Conservancy and member of FSF's Board of Directors, currently serves as editor-in-chief of the project. The text has already grown to 100 pages discussing all aspects of copyleft — including policy motivations, detailed study of the license texts, and compliance issues. This tutorial was initially constructed from materials that Kuhn developed on a semi-regular basis over the last eleven years. Kuhn merged this material, along with other material regarding the GPL published by the FSF, into a single, coherent volume, and released it publicly for the benefit of all users of Free Software. Today, Conservancy announces a specific, new contribution: an additional chapter to the Case Studies in GPL Enforcement section of the tutorial. This new chapter, co-written by Kuhn and Conservancy's Compliance Engineer, Denver Gingrich, discusses in detail the analysis of a complete, corresponding source (CCS) release for a real-world electronics product, and describes the process that Conservancy and the FSF use to determine whether a CCS candidate indeed complies with the requirements of the GPL. The CCS analyzed is for ThinkPenguin's TPE-NWIFIROUTER wireless router, which was recently given FSF's prestigious Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification.. This copyleft guide itself is freely distributed under copyleft, using the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, the primary copyleft license used for works of textual authorship in natural languages. Kuhn, who hopes the initial release and this subsequent announcement will inspire others to contribute to the guide, stated: information about copyleft — such as why it exists, how it works, and how to comply — should be freely available and modifiable, just as all generally useful technical information should. I am delighted to impart my experience with copyleft freely. I hope, however, that other key thinkers in the field of copyleft will contribute to help produce the best reference documentation on copyleft available. Particularly useful are the substantial contributions already made to the guide from the FSF itself. As the author, primary interpreter, and ultimate authority on the GPL, the FSF is in a unique position to provide insights into understanding free software licensing. While the guide as a living text will not automatically reflect official FSF positions, the FSF has already approved and published one version for use at its Seminar on GPL Enforcement and Legal Ethics in March 2014. John Sullivan, Executive Director of the FSF, noted, Participants at our licensing seminar in March commented positively on the high quality of the teaching materials, including the comprehensive guide to GPL compliance. We look forward to collaborating with the copyleft.org community to continually improve this resource, and we will periodically review particular versions for FSF endorsement and publication. Enthusiastic new contributors can get immediately involved by visiting and editing the main wiki on copyleft.org, or by submitting merge requests on copyleft.org's gitorious site for the guide, or by joining the project mailing list and IRC channel. copyleft.org welcomes all contributors. The editors have already incorporated other
Re: [License-discuss] [Trademark enquiries] MIT License attribution question
Hi Brian, OpenSource.org is not a legal services organization and can't give you legal advice. http://opensource.org/faq#legal-advice If the MIT license software is not *distributed* *in* your software or *with* your software (as libraries) either in source or binary form, then the MIT license makes no requirements of you. Otherwise, http://www.quora.com/Does-the-MIT-license-require-attribution-in-a-binary-only-distribution looks to provide some good non-legal advice. I find it helps me to remember that copyright line is in the context of publishing and distributing work and derivates of work. Hope that helps, Lloyd On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 1:11 PM, Brian Hasson brian.has...@idea5inc.com wrote: As a follow up note below, the reason for the question is that we are developing a software product by using certain OSI products governed by the MIT License. The question is whether under that license, we need to provide attribution (i.e., including the copyright and permissions statement) in the product we are developing. We are not redistributing the MIT licensed software, but rather using the software in the build/development of our software. Thanks. Brian K. Hasson, CPA, CIA Chief Financial Officer idea5 4509 South 143rd Street Suite 5 Omaha, NE 68137 O: (402) 934-7613 C: (813) 293-2745 www.idea5inc.com Success doesn’t come from ideas. Success comes from executing ideas. – Dharmesh Shah -Original Message- From: Brian Hasson Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 10:40 AM To: 'license-discuss@opensource.org' Subject: FW: [Trademark enquiries] MIT License attribution question I am following up on the question I posted to the OSI website. The MIT license states, Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the Software), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. My question: Software as defined represents the software that is being used under the MIT License, correct? If so, the condition statement would imply that the copyright notice and permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. Meaning, the software under the MIT License, or meaning the software being developed that is using the Software under the MIT license? If this is not clear, please call me at 402-934-7613. Thank you. Brian K. Hasson, CPA, CIA Chief Financial Officer idea5 4509 South 143rd Street Suite 5 Omaha, NE 68137 O: (402) 934-7613 C: (813) 293-2745 www.idea5inc.com Success doesn’t come from ideas. Success comes from executing ideas. – Dharmesh Shah -Original Message- From: webmas...@opensource.org [mailto:webmas...@opensource.org] On Behalf Of tradema...@opensource.org Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 10:28 AM To: Brian Hasson Subject: [Trademark enquiries] MIT License attribution question Thanks for contacting the Open Source Initiative. We will try to respond to your email shortly, but because of the volume of requests o...@opensource.org receives, we may not be able to respond to all emails in a timely mannner. If you have emailed o...@opensource.org directly, please consider using the contact form at http://opensource.org/contact - that will automatically direct your request to the right people. Below are some other information sources and contact points that may answer your questions. Membership: If you're writing with a question about our new membership program (either for individuals or groups), please contact members...@opensource.org (or see http://opensource.org/members). Licenses: If you have a question about open source licenses, our FAQ is the best place to start for license inquiries: http://opensource.org/faq If the FAQ does not answer your question, please contact license-discuss@opensource.org. (Note that messages sent to this address will be viewed and answered by the public at large.) Media: If you're a member of the media, and are looking for an interview, answers to specific questions, or other media-related inquiries, please contact pr...@opensource.org. Trademarks: If you'd like to use our trademarks or logo (such as the phrase Open Source or the keyhole logo), please review our Trademark Guidelines at http://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines If that does not address your question, or you would like to discuss licensing the mark, please email tradema...@opensource.org. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss
[License-discuss] new moderators to help deal with spam?
Hi, all- Spam on this list (and license-review) continues to be a problem. If anyone would be willing to step up and help out with moderation, I'd really appreciate it - please contact me off-list. Thanks! Luis ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] Fwd: [Osi] [General enquiries] Open source licence for a medical application
Eleftherios, I have forwarded on your request on to two other email lists dedicated specifically to licensing who might be able to provide some suggestions. Best of luck, Patrick Forwarded Message Subject: [Osi] [General enquiries] Open source licence for a medical application Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 16:12:44 + (UTC) From: eko...@hotmail.com To: o...@opensource.org Eleftherios Kondylis (eko...@hotmail.com) sent a message using the contact form at http://opensource.org/contact. Hello, I would like to ask, what should I do in order to make get an open source licence for a medical invention and particularly for an application in Orthodontics? What kind of licence should I choose, and what are the steps I have to do in order to achieve that? Thanx a lot for your time. Report as inappropriate: http://opensource.org/mollom/report/mollom_content/1409231b2898080f6e ___ Osi mailing list o...@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/osi ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [Osi] [General enquiries] OS license for seeds (!)
Tracy, Thank you for contacting the OSI. I have forwarded on your question to our License Discuss list. Perhaps someone on that list has a suggestion for you. Best of luck, Patrick On 08/05/2014 05:19 PM, tracyml...@gmail.com wrote: Tracy M Lord (tracyml...@gmail.com) sent a message using the contact form at http://opensource.org/contact. Can someone give me a thumbnail understanding of the legal status of the/any open source license? I am in the seed movement you may have heard there are initiatives to adapt an open source format for seeds to make them available to the public. Yet I am uncertain about the legal status of a license in this context. Thanks a million anyone who wants to attempt toe enlighten me on this. Report as inappropriate: http://opensource.org/mollom/report/mollom_content/1408052eb66545b1bf ___ Osi mailing list o...@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/osi -- ||| | ||||| |||| ||| Patrick Masson General Manager, Director Secretary to the Board Open Source Initiative 855 El Camino Real, Ste 13A, #270 Palo Alto, CA 94301 United States OSI Phone: (415) 857-5398 Direct Phone: (970) 4MASSON Skype: massonpj Em: mas...@opensource.org mailto:mas...@opensource.org Ws: www.opensource.org http://www.opensource.org ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [Osi] [General enquiries] POS softwre
Greg, Thank you for reaching out to the OSI. I have forwarded your question on to the License Discuss email list. You may also want to look over http://opensource.org/faq Best of luck, Patrick On 09/30/2014 05:41 PM, g...@discountpos.com wrote: greg boerner (g...@discountpos.com) sent a message using the contact form at http://opensource.org/contact. I own a restaurant and retail POS software and would be interested in opening it up for anyone to use for free through the Open source Initiative. What is involved in doing this... thanks greg boerner 832-398-5140 Report as inappropriate: http://opensource.org/mollom/report/mollom_content/14093019abc7cbb7e6 ___ Osi mailing list o...@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/osi -- ||| | ||||| |||| ||| Patrick Masson General Manager, Director Secretary to the Board Open Source Initiative 855 El Camino Real, Ste 13A, #270 Palo Alto, CA 94301 United States OSI Phone: (415) 857-5398 Direct Phone: (970) 4MASSON Skype: massonpj Em: mas...@opensource.org mailto:mas...@opensource.org Ws: www.opensource.org http://www.opensource.org ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [Osi] [General enquiries] Submission by Mistake
Thank you for contacting the OSI. I have forwarded on your question to the License Discuss list as someone there might have an answer for you. Best of luck, Patrick On 09/19/2014 03:40 AM, bibhudutta.p...@gmail.com wrote: BIBHUDUTTA PANI (bibhudutta.p...@gmail.com) sent a message using the contact form at http://opensource.org/contact. Hi, I may have subjected my code to Apache 2.0 license by mistake (i.e. without intending to do so). I had earlier written a code that was subject to Apache license and I meant it to be so. Subsequently, I have developed a separate license and while uploading it on a webstore, copied all information in the profile page of my earlier code (that included reference to Apache license). While I have referred Apache 2.0 license, have not included a notice, in the exact form, as prescribed under APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work. Given the above, can I now retract all references to Apache 2.0 license or will my work be compulsorily subject to Apache license? Report as inappropriate: http://opensource.org/mollom/report/mollom_content/140919128925fc70e2 ___ Osi mailing list o...@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/osi -- ||| | ||||| |||| ||| Patrick Masson General Manager, Director Secretary to the Board Open Source Initiative 855 El Camino Real, Ste 13A, #270 Palo Alto, CA 94301 United States OSI Phone: (415) 857-5398 Direct Phone: (970) 4MASSON Skype: massonpj Em: mas...@opensource.org mailto:mas...@opensource.org Ws: www.opensource.org http://www.opensource.org ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [Osi] [General enquiries] OS license for seeds (!)
I am in the seed movement you may have heard there are initiatives to adapt an open source format for seeds to make them available to the public. AFAIK, most of what seeds do was patented long ago in the Bible and can no longer be restricted. Even the copyrightable aspects of what seeds do has long ago been turned into poetry. As to whether strings of DNA can be patented or copyrighted and then licensed in an open source format - this is probably not the correct list to ask. There is a U.S. plant patent [1]. Such patents can then be licensed to the public like any other invention. You might want to develop some form of non-assert for free uses that makes sense for your seed specialty. Again, I doubt this is the best list to ask. You could approach some of the organic certification organizations, GMO advocacy groups, or even the USDA, to see if they are working on this. /Larry [1] http://www.uspto.gov/patents/resources/types/plant_patents.jsp Lawrence Rosen Rosenlaw Einschlag ( http://www.rosenlaw.com/ www.rosenlaw.com) 3001 King Ranch Rd., Ukiah, CA 95482 Cell: 707-478-8932 LinkedIn: http://lnkd.in/D9CWhD http://lnkd.in/D9CWhD From: Patrick Masson [mailto:mas...@opensource.org] Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 11:09 AM To: tracyml...@gmail.com; License Discuss Cc: o...@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Osi] [General enquiries] OS license for seeds (!) Tracy, Thank you for contacting the OSI. I have forwarded on your question to our License Discuss list. Perhaps someone on that list has a suggestion for you. Best of luck, Patrick On 08/05/2014 05:19 PM, tracyml...@gmail.com mailto:tracyml...@gmail.com wrote: Tracy M Lord (tracyml...@gmail.com mailto:tracyml...@gmail.com ) sent a message using the contact form at http://opensource.org/contact. Can someone give me a thumbnail understanding of the legal status of the/any open source license? I am in the seed movement you may have heard there are initiatives to adapt an open source format for seeds to make them available to the public. Yet I am uncertain about the legal status of a license in this context. Thanks a million anyone who wants to attempt toe enlighten me on this. Report as inappropriate: http://opensource.org/mollom/report/mollom_content/1408052eb66545b1bf ___ Osi mailing list o...@opensource.org mailto:o...@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/osi -- ||| | ||||| ||||||| Patrick Masson General Manager, Director Secretary to the Board Open Source Initiative 855 El Camino Real, Ste 13A, #270 Palo Alto, CA 94301 United States OSI Phone: (415) 857-5398 Direct Phone: (970) 4MASSON Skype: massonpj Em: mas...@opensource.org mailto:mas...@opensource.org Ws: www.opensource.org http://www.opensource.org ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Fwd: [Osi] [General enquiries] Open source licence for a medical application
Dear Eleftherios, Especially for the European licensors, the European Commission's www.Joinup.eu site has published a Licence Wizard https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/software/license-wizard/home that could help you for finding your way in the licensing jungle. Best, P-E. 2014-10-20 20:06 GMT+02:00 Patrick Masson mas...@opensource.org: Eleftherios, I have forwarded on your request on to two other email lists dedicated specifically to licensing who might be able to provide some suggestions. Best of luck, Patrick Forwarded Message Subject: [Osi] [General enquiries] Open source licence for a medical application Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 16:12:44 + (UTC) From: eko...@hotmail.com To: o...@opensource.org Eleftherios Kondylis (eko...@hotmail.com) sent a message using the contact form at http://opensource.org/contact. Hello, I would like to ask, what should I do in order to make get an open source licence for a medical invention and particularly for an application in Orthodontics? What kind of licence should I choose, and what are the steps I have to do in order to achieve that? Thanx a lot for your time. Report as inappropriate:http://opensource.org/mollom/report/mollom_content/1409231b2898080f6e ___ Osi mailing listOsi@opensource.orghttp://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/osi ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss -- Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz pe.schm...@googlemail.com tel. + 32 478 50 40 65 ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [Trademark enquiries] MIT License attribution question
As a follow up note below, the reason for the question is that we are developing a software product by using certain OSI products governed by the MIT License. The question is whether under that license, we need to provide attribution (i.e., including the copyright and permissions statement) in the product we are developing. We are not redistributing the MIT licensed software, but rather using the software in the build/development of our software. Thanks. Brian K. Hasson, CPA, CIA Chief Financial Officer idea5 4509 South 143rd Street Suite 5 Omaha, NE 68137 O: (402) 934-7613 C: (813) 293-2745 www.idea5inc.com Success doesn’t come from ideas. Success comes from executing ideas. – Dharmesh Shah -Original Message- From: Brian Hasson Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 10:40 AM To: 'license-discuss@opensource.org' Subject: FW: [Trademark enquiries] MIT License attribution question I am following up on the question I posted to the OSI website. The MIT license states, Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the Software), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. My question: Software as defined represents the software that is being used under the MIT License, correct? If so, the condition statement would imply that the copyright notice and permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. Meaning, the software under the MIT License, or meaning the software being developed that is using the Software under the MIT license? If this is not clear, please call me at 402-934-7613. Thank you. Brian K. Hasson, CPA, CIA Chief Financial Officer idea5 4509 South 143rd Street Suite 5 Omaha, NE 68137 O: (402) 934-7613 C: (813) 293-2745 www.idea5inc.com Success doesn’t come from ideas. Success comes from executing ideas. – Dharmesh Shah -Original Message- From: webmas...@opensource.org [mailto:webmas...@opensource.org] On Behalf Of tradema...@opensource.org Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 10:28 AM To: Brian Hasson Subject: [Trademark enquiries] MIT License attribution question Thanks for contacting the Open Source Initiative. We will try to respond to your email shortly, but because of the volume of requests o...@opensource.org receives, we may not be able to respond to all emails in a timely mannner. If you have emailed o...@opensource.org directly, please consider using the contact form at http://opensource.org/contact - that will automatically direct your request to the right people. Below are some other information sources and contact points that may answer your questions. Membership: If you're writing with a question about our new membership program (either for individuals or groups), please contact members...@opensource.org (or see http://opensource.org/members). Licenses: If you have a question about open source licenses, our FAQ is the best place to start for license inquiries: http://opensource.org/faq If the FAQ does not answer your question, please contact license-discuss@opensource.org. (Note that messages sent to this address will be viewed and answered by the public at large.) Media: If you're a member of the media, and are looking for an interview, answers to specific questions, or other media-related inquiries, please contact pr...@opensource.org. Trademarks: If you'd like to use our trademarks or logo (such as the phrase Open Source or the keyhole logo), please review our Trademark Guidelines at http://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines If that does not address your question, or you would like to discuss licensing the mark, please email tradema...@opensource.org. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] Fwd: submission type: Approval license name: MIT for ExploreJaipur Project
*Warm RegardsTarun Dixit | Server Network-Administrator|Girnar Software Pvt Ltd |* *207 | Adarsh Nagar | Near S Bhag Singh Chowk | Jaipur| 302004 | India |+91 141 422 4400 office | 9887023989 mobile | * www.girnarSoft.com http://www.girnarsoft.com/ *Note : Request you to please always raise ticket instead of mail for better faster resolution* *. We have trac for this http://trac.girnarsoft.com/trac/Network http://trac.girnarsoft.com/trac/NetworkMail me if trac is not working.* *Proud owners of www.CarDekho.com http://www.cardekho.com/, India's #1 auto portal!* *Confidentiality Notice Legal Disclaimer: This E-Mail Message (including attachments) may contain Confidential and/or legally privileged Information and is meant for the intended recipient(s) only. If you have received this e-mail in error and are not the intended recipient/s, kindly notify the sender and then delete this e-mail immediately from your system. You are also hereby notified that any use, any form of reproduction, dissemination, copying, disclosure, modification, distribution and/or publication of this e-mail, its contents or its attachment/s other than by its intended recipient/s is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. Internet Communications cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be delayed, intercepted, corrupted, lost, or contain viruses. Girnar does not accept any liability for any errors, omissions, viruses or computer problems experienced by any recipient as a result of this E-mail.* -- Forwarded message -- From: Tarun Dixit tarun.di...@girnarsoft.com Date: 23 September 2014 19:13 Subject: submission type: Approval license name: MIT for ExploreJaipur Project To: license-review-subscr...@opensource.org Cc: Sachin Pareek sachin.par...@girnarsoft.com Hi Team *submission type: Approval* *Rationale:*Clearly state rationale for a new license *license name: MIT* We need *MIT* license for project *ExploreJaipur* https://github.com/tarundixitravi/ExploreJaipur.git.. So we are seeking Approval of MIT licenses for our project ExploreJaipur. Please revert/guide i we left any thing in process of approval/applying open source MIT license. plaintext copy of the license The MIT License (MIT) Copyright (c) 2014 copyright girnarsoft Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the Software), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. *Warm RegardsTarun Dixit | Server Network-Administrator|Girnar Software Pvt Ltd |* *207 | Adarsh Nagar | Near S Bhag Singh Chowk | Jaipur| 302004 | India |+91 141 422 4400 office | 9887023989 mobile | * www.girnarSoft.com http://www.girnarsoft.com/ *Note : Request you to please always raise ticket instead of mail for better faster resolution* *. We have trac for this http://trac.girnarsoft.com/trac/Network http://trac.girnarsoft.com/trac/NetworkMail me if trac is not working.* *Proud owners of www.CarDekho.com http://www.cardekho.com/, India's #1 auto portal!* *Confidentiality Notice Legal Disclaimer: This E-Mail Message (including attachments) may contain Confidential and/or legally privileged Information and is meant for the intended recipient(s) only. If you have received this e-mail in error and are not the intended recipient/s, kindly notify the sender and then delete this e-mail immediately from your system. You are also hereby notified that any use, any form of reproduction, dissemination, copying, disclosure, modification, distribution and/or publication of this e-mail, its contents or its attachment/s other than by its intended recipient/s is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. Internet Communications cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be delayed, intercepted, corrupted, lost, or contain viruses. Girnar does not accept any liability for any errors, omissions, viruses or computer problems experienced by any recipient as a result of this E-mail.* The MIT License (MIT) Copyright (c) 2014 copyright girnarsoft Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
Re: [License-discuss] Fwd: submission type: Approval license name: MIT for ExploreJaipur Project
On 24/09/14 09:25, Tarun Dixit wrote: /submission type: Approval/ /Rationale:/Clearly state rationale for a new license /license name: MIT// / There is already an approved licence with that name. If it were not approved, you would not be able to submit it because you do not control its wording. Copyright (c) 2014 copyright girnarsoft The whole of the text copyright owner(s) is supposed to be replaced by a list of the copyright owners, preferably using their legal names. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Better MIT License ?
On 06/29/2014 07:39 AM, Joe Kua wrote: Is this better than the original MIT license ? It has patent grants which MIT lacks. At a cursory reading, it looks like I'd expect a first draft of MIT with patents to be like. Please note: IANAL, TINLA, not affiliated with OSI. An issue with simply adding patents in a license like this is that they have a different mechanism than copyright. I don't claim I understand software patents (they make little sense), only, I will submit to your attention a detail: their different coverage. (which doesn't follow copyright) If I take a look at Mozilla Public License 2.0 [1] and Apache License 2.0 [2], the patents being licensed have a scope delimited to: those necessarily infringed by the licensor's own code, or by the combination of the licensor's code with the rest of the work as it was when they add their code. Not less (not only the code you fully write yourself), not more (not the patents you may hold, which will be implemented by some fork or future development you don't - you can't - know about today). If I take a look at a license in development, a rewrite of CC0 with patents [3], I find a similar treatment with your new MIT license: it includes a patent grant for the Work/Software. Lets say I register patents P1, P2, P3. I contribute to a work under your New-MIT, a piece of code where I implement P1, and another patch that finishes an existing set of algorithms implementing P2. Which patents have I licensed by my actions? I think it's clear I have licensed P1, and I haven't licensed P3. I'm not so sure about P2. I think one can argue I didn't necessarily license P2. If I do the same for a project under MPL 2.0 or Apache 2.0, then by my actions I license P1 and P2. Non-ambiguously P2 too. Is the result above for New-MIT your desired result? Do you agree this is the result of the license(s)? [1] https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/ [2] https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html [3] https://github.com/asaunders/public-domain-customized -- Excuse me, Professor Lessig, may I ask you to sign this CLA, so we can *legally* have your permission to distribute your CC-licensed works? ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] Fwd: [Osi] [General enquiries] Type of License and Keylock
I'm not sure if anyone got back to Giorgio on this. I am sure he would appreciate this group's thoughts. Thanks, Patrick Original Message Subject:[Osi] [General enquiries] Type of License and Keylock Date: Tue, 27 May 2014 19:35:13 + (UTC) From: gior...@sommaruga.org To: o...@opensource.org Giorgio Sommaruga (gior...@sommaruga.org) sent a message using the contact form at http://opensource.org/contact. My team is developing a project in business area. The software is developed in two segment. A first segment is a basic version of software with an Open Source license, but we don't want to allow to modify the code and then resell it. We want to allow changes only for personal use. And second segment is based over the basic version but with other proprietary code, for example for more other functions or add-ons. We want to enable our partners to modify the software and sell it, but only with our authorization and acquiring the rights of the changes. Furthermore we would like to combine the software with a hardware protection, at least for the business but if possible also for the Open segment. This, at least to keep track of who is using the software. As an alternative for the Open segment, we would like to force the user to register the software in order to receive an activation code. Is this possible in the context of OSI licenses and which one? Thanks in advance. Sincerely Giorgio Sommaruga Report as inappropriate: http://opensource.org/mollom/report/mollom_content/140527e8b62565508a ___ Osi mailing list o...@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/osi ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Fwd: [Osi] [General enquiries] Type of License and Keylock
Giorgio clearly is confusing open source and non-commercial. The point of open source is that when you get it, you are free to use pretty much however you want. Including commercially. So any personal use only software is not open source. See http://opensource.org/osd-annotated for details. On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 2:32 PM, Patrick Masson mas...@opensource.org wrote: I'm not sure if anyone got back to Giorgio on this. I am sure he would appreciate this group's thoughts. Thanks, Patrick Original Message Subject: [Osi] [General enquiries] Type of License and Keylock Date: Tue, 27 May 2014 19:35:13 + (UTC) From: gior...@sommaruga.org To: o...@opensource.org Giorgio Sommaruga (gior...@sommaruga.org) sent a message using the contact form at http://opensource.org/contact. My team is developing a project in business area. The software is developed in two segment. A first segment is a basic version of software with an Open Source license, but we don't want to allow to modify the code and then resell it. We want to allow changes only for personal use. And second segment is based over the basic version but with other proprietary code, for example for more other functions or add-ons. We want to enable our partners to modify the software and sell it, but only with our authorization and acquiring the rights of the changes. Furthermore we would like to combine the software with a hardware protection, at least for the business but if possible also for the Open segment. This, at least to keep track of who is using the software. As an alternative for the Open segment, we would like to force the user to register the software in order to receive an activation code. Is this possible in the context of OSI licenses and which one? Thanks in advance. Sincerely Giorgio Sommaruga Report as inappropriate:http://opensource.org/mollom/report/mollom_content/140527e8b62565508a ___ Osi mailing listOsi@opensource.orghttp://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/osi ___ 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
[License-discuss] Better MIT License ?
Hi, Is this better than the original MIT license ? It has patent grants which MIT lacks. Copyright (c) year copyright holders Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, and under any and all copyright and patent rights owned or freely licensable by each licensor hereunder, whether an original author or another licensor, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the Software), to deal in current and future versions of the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to make, use, copy, modify, merge, link, sell, offer for sale, import, export, have made, have sold, publish, display, perform, create derivative works of, distribute, redistribute, sub-license the Software, in source or object form, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright/patent notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Issue on licenses pages
* Engel Nyst engel.n...@gmail.com [2013-11-22 00:23]: It seems that OSL 1.1, 2.0, and AFL 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1 are not accessible at http://opensource.org/licenses/[SPDX name]. As far as I know/find, they have been approved. Luis said in http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/2013-November/001389.html that he was happy to add these licenses if there were no objections and there weren't any. Can these please be added. Note that I found some of these licenses an old mirror of the OSI web site: http://www.samurajdata.se/opensource/mirror/licenses/osl-2.0.php http://www.samurajdata.se/opensource/mirror/licenses/afl-2.0.php http://www.samurajdata.se/opensource/mirror/licenses/afl-2.1.php -- Martin Michlmayr http://www.cyrius.com/ ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] You need to pay to access AGPL3 scripts?
On 10/06/14 22:26, Kuno Woudt wrote: I assume FullContentRSS has the copyright on their own software, and can license it as they want. Including selling it to you under AGPLv3, while not offering a download themselves for their users. I find it difficult to work out why someone would use the AGPL unless there was an upstream AGPL constraint or the wanted the software to be free of charge to users of their service. The only thought I had was that it was to put competitors at a disadvantage, as they would have to provide free source, but that doesn't really hold water. As far as I can see, for someone who didn't want to maximise availability of the code and wasn't under an AGPL constraint from upstream it would be better to use the plain GPL. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] You need to pay to access AGPL3 scripts?
The downside of the GPL for networked programs is that someone can receive the program, modify it to strip references to you out of the output, improve it, and then host a competitor. There is no legal issue as long as they don't redistribute. The AGPL is supposed to avoid this issue. Because now they have to acknowledge you, adn let you see their improvements. On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 1:55 PM, David Woolley for...@david-woolley.me.uk wrote: On 10/06/14 22:26, Kuno Woudt wrote: I assume FullContentRSS has the copyright on their own software, and can license it as they want. Including selling it to you under AGPLv3, while not offering a download themselves for their users. I find it difficult to work out why someone would use the AGPL unless there was an upstream AGPL constraint or the wanted the software to be free of charge to users of their service. The only thought I had was that it was to put competitors at a disadvantage, as they would have to provide free source, but that doesn't really hold water. As far as I can see, for someone who didn't want to maximise availability of the code and wasn't under an AGPL constraint from upstream it would be better to use the plain GPL. ___ 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] You need to pay to access AGPL3 scripts?
On 11/06/14 22:24, Ben Tilly wrote: The AGPL is supposed to avoid this issue. Because now they have to acknowledge you, adn let you see their improvements. Not really about freedom then. They lose the freedom to hide their upgrades, but you don't. The tactic may be within the rules, but it seems against the spirit. I though the real intent of the AGPL was to ensure that users could see the enhanced code, rather than as a way of feeding back to a privileged originator. In any case, the originator can only use a clean room re-implementation of the enhancements if they want to retain the privileged position of being able to charge for their code. If they include the upgrades as is, they are now downstream of an AGPL contributor and must use the AGPL rules. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] You need to pay to access AGPL3 scripts?
Free / open source software like freedom, not like free beer :-) No FOSS license prohibits making some money out of all the work done... P-E 2014-06-10 7:51 GMT+02:00 ChanMaxthon xcvi...@me.com: I believe it is perfectly fine. RMS himself even *encourage* that. Sent from my iPhone On Jun 10, 2014, at 13:11, ldr ldr stackoverflowuse...@gmail.com wrote: Here is an excerpt from the response I received: Yes, FullContentRSS is an AGPL3 script, you can use and/or modify the script as you want. However you can get the script for $20. Is that congruent with the AGPL3 license? ___ 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 -- Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz pe.schm...@googlemail.com tel. + 32 478 50 40 65 ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] You need to pay to access AGPL3 scripts?
On 6/9/2014 10:11 PM, ldr ldr wrote: Yes, FullContentRSS is an AGPL3 script, you can use and/or modify the script as you want. However you can get the script for $20. Is that congruent with the AGPL3 license? Yes. The primary reason most FLOSS is distributed gratis, is because FLOSS licenses don't prohibit one from giving away the program, provided source code is also included. That same non-prohibition is why it is not uncommon to find FLOSS that has been re-labelled, and sold in the same price range as the non-FLOSS competitor. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] You need to pay to access AGPL3 scripts?
On 10/06/14 06:51, ChanMaxthon wrote: I believe it is perfectly fine. RMS himself even *encourage* that. I think people are missing the point here. Assuming the requestor has used the service, this is a clear violation of clause 13 of the AGPL, and, if allowed would make the AGPL effectively indistinguishable from the GPL, as you could select a fee that was so large that it was unrealistic to exercise the additional rights you gain from the AGPL. Where you have the option to make an arbitrary charge is for supply of the software when you never obtained a copy of the software in any form from them and never used the service based on that software. If the site is AGPL compliant, there is no need for someone who is using the service to request anyone to supply the software, as there will be a link providing a free download. On Jun 10, 2014, at 13:11, ldr ldr stackoverflowuse...@gmail.com wrote: Here is an excerpt from the response I received: Yes, FullContentRSS is an AGPL3 script, you can use and/or modify the script as you want. However you can get the script for $20. Is that congruent with the AGPL3 license? ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] You need to pay to access AGPL3 scripts?
Hi, On 10-06-14 16:10, David Woolley wrote: On 10/06/14 06:51, ChanMaxthon wrote: I believe it is perfectly fine. RMS himself even *encourage* that. I think people are missing the point here. Assuming the requestor has used the service, this is a clear violation of clause 13 of the AGPL, and, if allowed would make the AGPL effectively indistinguishable from the GPL, as you could select a fee that was so large that it was unrealistic to exercise the additional rights you gain from the AGPL. Where you have the option to make an arbitrary charge is for supply of the software when you never obtained a copy of the software in any form from them and never used the service based on that software. If the site is AGPL compliant, there is no need for someone who is using the service to request anyone to supply the software, as there will be a link providing a free download. I assume FullContentRSS has the copyright on their own software, and can license it as they want. Including selling it to you under AGPLv3, while not offering a download themselves for their users. -- Kuno. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] You need to pay to access AGPL3 scripts?
Here is an excerpt from the response I received: Yes, FullContentRSS is an AGPL3 script, you can use and/or modify the script as you want. However you can get the script for $20. Is that congruent with the AGPL3 license? ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] You need to pay to access AGPL3 scripts?
I believe it is perfectly fine. RMS himself even *encourage* that. Sent from my iPhone On Jun 10, 2014, at 13:11, ldr ldr stackoverflowuse...@gmail.com wrote: Here is an excerpt from the response I received: Yes, FullContentRSS is an AGPL3 script, you can use and/or modify the script as you want. However you can get the script for $20. Is that congruent with the AGPL3 license? ___ 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] Pars pro toto: a fundamental(?) lack in (MIT licensed) (jquery) java-script packages?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 02/03/2014 02:57 PM, John Sullivan wrote: Possible big JavaScript campaign victory, please investigate. Original Message From: Reincke, Karsten k.rein...@telekom.de Sent: February 3, 2014 10:58:53 AM EST To: license-discuss@opensource.org license-discuss@opensource.org Cc: John Sullivan jo...@fsf.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Pars pro toto: a fundamental(?) lack in (MIT licensed) (jquery) java-script packages? Many thanks for your comments. We discussed your proposals during the last weeks very thoroughly, even it seems to be only a 'small' issue: We totally agree with John Sullivan: the main purpose of distributing the license text itself (as it is required by nearly all open source licenses) is not to use the software compliantly, but to let the user know that he has some rights and certain freedoms. Nevertheless, we have to take the licenses seriously: If the licenses require that permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software (MIT) and if that can't be implemented because of technical reasons (loss of performance), there is a gap. To solve this gap in the spirit of the open source idea, we are modifying our sites by following the proposal of the FSF: our sites (eg. OSLiC [http://dtag-dbu.github.io/oslic/], OSCAd [http://dtag-dbu.github.io/oscad/], or DTAG github user [http://dtag-dbu.github.io/]) shall offer a specific page listing all FLOSS components used by the sites. And the footer of each page of the site shall link the phrase FLOSS components to that page. And we try to communicate this solution into our complete company. Please feel free to add further comments and proposals if you see a better way to fulfill our obligations. Best regards Karsten Reincke --- Deutsche Telekom AG / Products Innovation Karsten Reincke, PMP®, Senior Expert Open Source Review Board - TP/AS/TM [display complete signatur: http://opensource.telekom.net/kreincke/kr-dtag-sign-de.txt ] -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: John Sullivan [mailto:jo...@fsf.org] Gesendet: Freitag, 3. Januar 2014 00:24 An: Reincke, Karsten Cc: license-discuss@opensource.org Betreff: Re: [License-discuss] Pars pro toto: a fundamental(?) lack in (MIT licensed) (jquery) java-script packages? Reincke, Karsten k.rein...@telekom.de writes: Therefore, we want to ask: Are we right? Do we really have to add the MIT license to an MIT licensed package which does not contain this license? Or is there any way to distribute the library to our 3rd. parties in exact that form we received from jquery? We have a couple of ways of conveying license info for JavaScript that we hope people will adopt -- they are both machine and human readable -- at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html. The method described at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/javascript-labels.html is probably most suitable for cases like jquery. License notices are important for the people receiving the software -- so that users who get the software know they have certain freedoms. It may help to think about it in these terms as well as just satisfying copyright holder requirements/expectations. -john -- John Sullivan | Executive Director, Free Software Foundation GPG Key: 61A0963B | http://status.fsf.org/johns | http://fsf.org/blogs/RSS Do you use free software? Donate to join the FSF and support freedom at http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=8096. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss Hello Karsten, I'm Zak Rogoff, a campaigns manager that works with John Sullivan at the Free Software Foundation. I wanted to congratulate you again on taking steps to display full license information on OSLiC's and OSCAd's websites, and check in with you about the status of the project. We'd be glad to answer questions or provide help (we have an email list of experts specifically for this purpose), and, if you are interested, make a supportive announcement when the project is complete. - -- Zak Rogoff Campaigns Manager Free Software Foundation GPG ID: B5090AC8 -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJTehz5AAoJEILejWS1CQrImcQH/063iUZVuHpR1BwnAVfsamnb MaNAKLvg42FTvpsdHLbsHrx8qoWV8FMVjfaodMij88sIl4kGEgSA5PlXiJmcbNbV ZO3ea8UdrwVvncKTKjMbfcF7Qn00nfIeF9VyUquaINQ6g4+CF8AJDPWbRQ//300V ycUxEQY9jSHxUpFO86qKKxNNZdnus6g4SXOiq1Z/4no+eFgS93Jo3UP26oKfioCs NwvsA9Glgwzoa49dc5FodvP1VKvIRLOICEotZxqy8XFubLCjXIerH/JMIqHXVdjY QO6cX3xxkZune7paNwfDsEoFejZthRntFIc/DjXYBbFHbyDQJQPp1DtTS5lTFHk= =LVXU -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
Richard Fontana font...@sharpeleven.org writes: 1) Have licenses out in the world that are OSD-compliant, and that we informally agree are open source, but that we don't certify. This will cause growing divergence between what is open source and what the OSI has approved. That would be very, very bad. I consider it important to understand, and acknowledge, that this divergence already exists in most people's minds (i.e. those people who have enough knowledge of what's going on in the real world). It exists in my own mind. Certainly, and in mind too. But I'd always assumed that the divergence exists mostly for the minority of people paying close attention. I could be wrong, and if I am, then perhaps (1) isn't so bad after all, since we seem to be playing a valuable role even in that world. It would still be useful to have a better answer on US-gov't-produced PD software, though. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
The analoguous explanation for why cc0 didn't qualify is that it explicitly said you get rights a and b but not c, with c a necessary right to copy and use the software. It should be obvious that - even if you'd disagree wrt patents - at least for some values of c that is clearly not open source. The fact that many older licenses are silent/ambiguous about c, and were written in a time when c didn't exist, is a different problem. henrik On 3 May 2014 23:14, John Cowan co...@mercury.ccil.org wrote: Richard Fontana scripsit: When the MXM license was considered, some people pointed to OSD #7 as suggesting that a sufficiently narrowly-drawn patent license grant in a license would not be Open Source. This was the problem I raised when CC0 was submitted. It was the inconsistency. It depends on your view of how the OSD applies to patents. Since it nowhere mentions them, I don't see how it can apply to them. #7 merely says that licenses of the form You get rights a, b, and c, whereas your transferees only get rights a and b, possibly qualified by unless they sign this, aren't open-source licenses. I continue to think that our CC0 decision was wrong insofar as it can be read as saying that the CC0 license is not an open-source (as opposed to OSI Certified) license. There may be reasons not to certify it, but not to deny that it is open source. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org Female celebrity stalker, on a hot morning in Cairo: Imagine, Colonel Lawrence, ninety-two already! El Auruns's reply: Many happy returns of the day! ___ 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] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
Henrik Ingo scripsit: The analoguous explanation for why cc0 didn't qualify is that it explicitly said you get rights a and b but not c, with c a necessary right to copy and use the software. It should be obvious that - even if you'd disagree wrt patents - at least for some values of c that is clearly not open source. Yes, but c (patent rights) is not granted to *anyone* by CC0. Whether those rights are necessary or not, they don't come within the ambit of OSD #7, which is about indirect distributees getting the same rights as direct distributees. Here, neither kind get any patent rights, so #7 is not triggered. You could argue that selling is a patent right, and OSD #1 is violated if a patent restricts you from selling software distributed under CC0. But #1 reads to me as a restriction on the license, which contains no such provision. If the open-source nature of CC0 is to be disproved, it must be shown that it violates some clause of the OSD. This is distinct from the prudence or otherwise of certifying the license. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org It was dreary and wearisome. Cold clammy winter still held sway in this forsaken country. The only green was the scum of livid weed on the dark greasy surfaces of the sullen waters. Dead grasses and rotting reeds loomed up in the mists like ragged shadows of long-forgotten summers. --LOTR, The Passage of the Marshes ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 10:34 PM, Richard Fontana font...@sharpeleven.org wrote: On Sat, 3 May 2014 22:07:19 +0300 Henrik Ingo henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi wrote: Does the US government grant itself patents, Yes. and if so, what does it do with those patents? Many are licensed to the private sector for revenue. That is so perverse I cannot even formulate words to explain how I feel about that... Wrt the original question it seems there are good grounds to ask federal employees to pony up an actual open source license, especially one of those that includes a patent license. That said, it seems most will agree that the public domain copyright is for all intents and purposes open source. I suppose this is comparable to how artistic license is open source but preferably you'd use a better 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 ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
John Cowan co...@mercury.ccil.org writes: I continue to think that our CC0 decision was wrong insofar as it can be read as saying that the CC0 license is not an open-source (as opposed to OSI Certified) license. There may be reasons not to certify it, but not to deny that it is open source. [warning: long] IMHO it would be a long-term problem for the OSI (and for open source in general, given the useful standardization/certification role OSI plays) to have there be licenses that we call open source but don't certify. After all, the *definition* of open source is supposed to be just whatever complies with the OSD. And our certification process is also Does this comply with the OSD?... So the two shouldn't diverge; to the extent that they do, we have a problem. The distinction we are being pushed toward, I think, is the subset of open source licenses (that is, OSD-compliant licenses) that the OSI would *recommend* for use. Er, if we did recommending :-). Right now, we don't, officially. We're edging into it warily, though, with the rearrangement of the http://opensource.org/licenses/ page, which starts off with the Popular Licenses section. This is not a criticism, by the way. Such tentative steps are the right way to get there. But in the long run I think we have two mutually exclusive choices: 1) Have licenses out in the world that are OSD-compliant, and that we informally agree are open source, but that we don't certify. This will cause growing divergence between what is open source and what the OSI has approved. That would be very, very bad. 2) Officially certify any license (or PD status / PD dedication) that is OSD-compliant as open source, but for most of them attach commentary explaining why most people probably shouldn't use it and why one should one of the popular licenses instead. (1) is a disaster. It will defeat much of the point of the OSI, in the long run. We're sort of doing the complement of (2) right now, with the Popular Licenses section. Whether it's useful to limit ourselves to labeling some licenses preferable, or should do the other side as well and label other licenses as yeah, it's open source, but we don't recommend using it for new code unless you have no choice is, of course, a complicated political question. We don't need to resolve it in this thread... ...but I think we do need to come to some sort of solution soon. The U.S. government is going to keep releasing what is (obviously) open source software into the public domain; CC0 is also becoming more popular in non-software works and will inevitably make inroads into software too. These works are all basically OSD-compliant, and will be treated by people as open source. If we don't find some way to incorporate those terms into our certification process, it's the certification mark that will be hurt in the long run, not the licenses / PD statuses. That's why I'm so worried by threads like that one I saw on GitHub that started this. Those folks are crying out for us to provide clarity, even if they don't know it yet :-), and we must find a way to do so. I completely agree, by the way, that we can be active about requiring certain kinds of patent promises. E.g., maybe we wouldn't certify PD itself for software works, but would certify PD *when accompanied by* a particular patent non-assertion text. We'd have a lot of leverage to do so, given that refusing to make that non-assertion promise, when asked for it, would draw attention to the fact that the party has now publicly decided not to be open source enough for the OSI. So I'm not saying we should just certify PD and CC0 and be done with it -- it's more complex than that. But the current limbo is not stable, and will inevitably damage the remarkable unanimity we currently have around OSI certification. We'll have to solve this, probably sooner rather than later. Best, -K ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
Quoting John Cowan (co...@mercury.ccil.org): [Appreciating and agreeing with what you say, FWIW, but I have one thing to add.] In the end, certification is just a convenience to the users: it says that a group of fairly knowledgeable people are willing to stand behind the cliam that each certified license conforms to the OSD. In my opinion, this is a particularly important function because of firms that publish deliberately deceptive licensing, such as sneaking extremely problematic and intrusive badgeware clauses, having the effect of greatly deterring all third-party commercial reuse, into what is publicly claimed to be [A]GPL v3 licensing using the 'legal notices or author attributions' incorporate-by-reference feature in section 7 of [A]GPL v3. SugarCRM, one of the main drivers of the badgeware model - back in the days when OSI was being arm-twisted by that gang of OSBC regulars in the advocacy effort that resulted in certification of dead-on-arrival minimal badgeware licence CPAL - appears to have pioneered this style of Section 7 hokery: The sponsoring firm behind a Web 2.0 hosted application claims in all the public marketing materials that the software is open source under GPLv3 or APGLv3, disclosing _only_ in obscure, not-easily-noticed places that they actually mean GPLv3 or APGLv3 with additional restrictions encumbering commercial third-party reuse. Admittedly, OSI's licence-certification program doesn't do much to stop this sort of chicanery, but at least OSI makes clear that its certificaiton program certifies specific licence texts and not also Everyone's Vaguely Similar Imitation Licences with Concealed Anti-Competition Restrictions. (As an aside, I also think SugarCRM and imitators' use of section 7, when last I checked on that usage[1], vastly exceeded the permitted scope of notice, e.g., the only notices that may be required to be included somewhere in the interactive user interface display are a copyright notice and warranty disclaimer if applicable: That is made clear in the licence text's definition of Appropriate Legal Notices. Requiring a company logo on every single user interace screen of the work and all derivative works exceed greatly what section 7 permits, not to mention requiring UI display of legal notices beyond the copyright notice and warranty disclaimer. This misuse is particularly egregious since the section 7 wording was edited to its present state at the request of SugarCRM, Inc., according to Richard Fontana's post to debian-legal a couple of years ago.[2]) [1] http://linuxgazette.net/159/misc/lg/sugarcrm_and_badgeware_licensing_again.html [2] https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2011/12/msg00045.html Richard opines in this post that SugarCRM's logo requirement as of mid-2007, in his judgement complied with FSF's intent about how intrusive badgeware might be and still remain free software. I respect Richard highly and of course believe him. By 2009, when I last checked SugarCRM's terms, they were excessive enough that IMO, if FSF still thinks that's not out of bounds for free software, they've lost their collective minds. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
Richard, I just wanted to call out a neat statistical trick you just made: On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 9:06 PM, Richard Fontana font...@sharpeleven.org wrote: On Sun, 04 May 2014 11:48:13 -0500 Karl Fogel kfo...@red-bean.com wrote: I don't know offhand the current count of OSI-approved licenses but I think it is around 70. In a typical traditional server/desktop Linux distro, the numbers of distinct licenses regarded *reasonably* by the communities of users and distributors of that distro as open source must number at least in the several hundreds. (Think of the universe of licenses covering packages considered DFSG-conformant in Debian, since the criteria are at least superficially very similar to the OSD, its descendant.) Sure. But it isn't at bad as you make it sound. The above sounds like more than half of the licenses in Debian (as an example of the distro with most packages) are not OSI certified. At the same time, Debian has over 37k packages and what stats we have from blackduck and other sources make me comfortable in guessing that safely more than 99% and probably more than 99,9% of Debian packages do use an OSI certified license. From this point of view I'd say we are doing very well here. I obviously agree that it is important that reality and OSI converge, but at the same time it serves no useful purpose to spend time certifying things like GPLv1. ...but I think we do need to come to some sort of solution soon. The U.S. government is going to keep releasing what is (obviously) open source software into the public domain; CC0 is also becoming more popular in non-software works and will inevitably make inroads into software too. I'm going to out myself here and say that I believe CC0 is obviously lowercase-o, lowercase-s open source despite the clause about patents. That doesn't mean the OSI should have approved it, that doesn't mean the OSI should recommend its use in its current form or cease its current practice of recommending against its use. I have a similar view of US government public domain works (with the added problem that it is clear that many intellectual property lawyers working across different US government agencies are confused over what 17 USC 105 means). Yes, US works that are public domain worldwide are obviously open source, but as with CC0 this has some implications for how licenses that explicitly mention disposition of patent rights should be treated. Is the US governments exclusion of patents that explicit? I mean I don't contest it as a fact, but to a layman I don't expect legislation to be coherent or 100% intentional. Politics to me seems much more like a one hand giveth, one taketh away kind of situation. Kind of like the discussion whether the US government works truly are worldwide public domain or just except for all the other countries but US public domain. It's messy reality and there's nothing we can do about it. (Another analogue: do software patents exist in Europe or not? That's a good ice breaker for conversation, but I wouldn't want OSI to assume no as the correct answer for purposes of certifying licenses.) CC0 otoh had an explicit sentence excluding patent rights, that to me seems much more problematic. As we are going on the record then, I see a distinction between CC0 being intentionally wrong and US public domain works just being an imperfect legal construct. John keeps asking for statements like above to always be based on specific OSD paragraphs. Maybe that's a good idea. I'll try to express my judgement of CC0: The patent clause in CC0 fails in OSD compliance because: §1: it explicitly reserves the right to restrict some party or any party from selling, giving away and redistributing, now or at a future time. It also explicitly reserves the right to ask for royalties for such sale or redistribtuion. §5 and §6: even if the license text itself is neutral, it reserves the right for the licensor to discriminate between recipients of the license such as prohibiting some recipients from using or redistributing the software, or requiring royalties for some type of use or users. For example separating commercial/non-commercial, geographically or just tactically or even arbitrarily. I should note that this would be a very likely way of enforcing ones patent rights. §7: excluding a patent grant fails the intent of this paragraph, though technically the rights actually included in CC0 do satisfy this paragraph. §8 and §10: I see similar risks here: it is likely that a patent holder could enforce patents in a way that fail to meet the intent of these paragraphs, even if the license text otherwise is neutral here. 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 ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
Henrik Ingo scripsit: Is the US governments exclusion of patents that explicit? The only thing that makes the U.S. Government different from any other actor in IP law is that it cannot (and therefore its employees acting in the scope of their employment cannot) acquire copyright on any works it has created. It can and does hold copyright that has been transferred to it by other creators, and it can and does acquire patents. That is what makes the NOSA 1.3 important as an OSI certified license. It allows any U.S. government agency to open-source its works fully. John keeps asking for statements like above to always be based on specific OSD paragraphs. Maybe that's a good idea. I'll try to express my judgement of CC0: Thanks. I'll have to reflect further on your specifics about #5, #6, #8, and #10. As I said before, I think #1 is a reasonable argument against CC0 but #7 is not. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org But that, he realized, was a foolish thought; as no one knew better than he that the Wall had no other side. --Arthur C. Clarke, The Wall of Darkness ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
Simon Phipps scripsit: We did not decide against CC0. The discussion was certainly at a low point when Creative Commons withdrew it from the approval process, but that's what happened, not an OSI denial. Had they persisted, I believe OSI would have needed to face the issue of how licenses treat patents. I stand corrected. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org Any legal document draws most of its meaning from context. A telegram that says 'SELL HUNDRED THOUSAND SHARES IBM SHORT' (only 190 bits in 5-bit Baudot code plus appropriate headers) is as good a legal document as any, even sans digital signature. --me ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] How licenses treat patents
Simon Phipps wrote in relation to CC0: ... Had they persisted, I believe OSI would have needed to face the issue of how licenses treat patents. There really aren't too many alternative ways for FOSS licenses to treat patents: * The FOSS license does not contain a patent license. * There is a patent license for the FOSS work as distributed. * There is a patent license for the FOSS work as distributed and its derivative works. * There is a patent license for all FOSS works. * The patent license is royalty-free and unencumbered for the implementation of a standard. I'm aware of FOSS-compatible licensing examples of each of these. There are also sloppy licenses where at first read the scope of the patent license isn't obvious. For example, the GPLv2 prohibits distribution if a patent encumbrance is actually encountered – but without offering a patent licenses directly. There are many examples of patent-encumbered software where the copyright owner doesn't own and can't license the patent. This is the problem of third party patents and patent trolls and university professors and US government employees. I know of an example of FOSS software where the patent claims are licensed separately (and for a fee) to almost the entire software industry already – but separately from the FOSS copyright license. Certain important codecs are licensed that way. There are even examples where the copyright owner is willing to grant a patent license for most FOSS applications but excludes certain applications. The Oracle/Sun/Java TCK licensing is an example of that. Given this wide assortment of alternatives, do you expect OSI to bless any one in particular? Probably the only grand solution to the patent problem is the one proposed by Richard Stallman and lots of others: Prohibit software patents entirely. But that ain't gonna happen in our lifetimes, so I hope OSI doesn't waste its time traveling down that particular long and winding road. /Larry Lawrence Rosen Rosenlaw Einschlag ( http://www.rosenlaw.com/ www.rosenlaw.com) 3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482 Cell: 707-478-8932 Fax: 707-485-1243 From: Simon Phipps [mailto:si...@webmink.com] Sent: Sunday, May 4, 2014 4:05 PM To: license-discuss@opensource.org Cc: Karl Fogel Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source? On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 9:13 PM, John Cowan co...@mercury.ccil.org mailto:co...@mercury.ccil.org wrote: I continue to think that our CC0 decision was wrong insofar as it can be read as saying that the CC0 license is not an open-source (as opposed to OSI Certified) license. There may be reasons not to certify it, but not to deny that it is open source. We did not decide against CC0. The discussion was certainly at a low point when Creative Commons withdrew it from the approval process, but that's what happened, not an OSI denial. Had they persisted, I believe OSI would have needed to face the issue of how licenses treat patents. S. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] How licenses treat patents
Lawrence Rosen scripsit: * The FOSS license does not contain a patent license. The issue appears to be whether there is a difference for OSI purposes between licenses that withhold patent rights and those which are silent about them. My view is that there is not, but others disagree. There are many examples of patent-encumbered software where the copyright owner doesn't own and can't license the patent. This is the problem of third party patents and patent trolls and university professors and US government employees. Inevitably so. In the nature of patents, no one can claim to indemnify a recipient against all possible patents. At most we can ask that the licensor himself license those which he has. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org A rabbi whose congregation doesn't want to drive him out of town isn't a rabbi, and a rabbi who lets them do it isn't a man.--Jewish saying ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
Richard Fontana font...@sharpeleven.org writes: This work's authors seem to explicitly say that they are dedicating it to the public domain, not merely (or explicitly at all, as far as I can see here) relying on the notion of statutory public domain for US government works. I'd argue those are two different concepts of public domain (one of which is really something more akin to the effect achieved by CC0). No, I took away the opposite impression: they are US gov't employees working on a gov't project on gov't time, and that they contend they therefore have no choice about its public domain status. That's what they seem to be saying in the comments, and it matches the owner of the GitHub account, which is the US National Geospatial Agency: https://github.com/ngageoint/geoevents/ With statutory public domain works, you can't be sure out of context what the status of the work is when published outside the US. See e.g. http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#317. I've found that many US government lawyers dealing with open source seem to assume that 17 USC 105 operates worldwide (this sometimes comes up in the form of a refusal to sign CLAs because 'there is no copyright to license'). Also with statutory public domain works you have the same old MXM/CC0 inconsistency problem in a different form. Consider the case of public domain source code created by a US government employee, having features covered by a patent held by the US government. The patent issue would apply just as much if it were MIT- or BSD-licensed, though, and we'd call it open source then, right? http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#317 seems to indicate that we'd need an explicit notice that the U.S. government will not claim any copyright on the work in jurisdictions outside the U.S. If the US government were to publish such notice on a given work -- say, if standardized language for doing so were approved by the OSI :-) -- then would there be any sense in which the work would not be compliant with the OSD? E.g., would its open-sourceness be materially different from an MIT-licensed work? It wouldn't have any attribution or no-warranty clause, but the *absence* of those clauses is not a problem w.r.t. the OSD. Best, -K ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
That's an interesting angle to bite on... Does the US government grant itself patents, and if so, what does it do with those patents? On 3 May 2014 06:45, Richard Fontana font...@sharpeleven.org wrote: On Fri, 02 May 2014 14:55:55 -0500 Karl Fogel kfo...@red-bean.com wrote: This thread on GitHub gets (needlessly?) complicated. It's about a public-domain software work put out by the U.S. government, and there's no clarity on whether calling it open source and citing the OSI's definition of the term would be appropriate: https://github.com/ngageoint/geoevents/issues/2#issuecomment-41739913 Someone cites our FAQ item on it (which, as its primary author, I found tickled my vanity :-) ), but really, I wish they didn't have to cite the OSI FAQ and could instead just say yup, public domain is open source. The things we don't like about public domain (lack of explicit liability limitation, different definitions in different jurisdictions) are not in themselves counter to the OSD, after all. Thoughts? Should OSI look for a route to say that public domain works (like ones put out by the U.S. government) are open source too, or is it just too problematic? This work's authors seem to explicitly say that they are dedicating it to the public domain, not merely (or explicitly at all, as far as I can see here) relying on the notion of statutory public domain for US government works. I'd argue those are two different concepts of public domain (one of which is really something more akin to the effect achieved by CC0). With statutory public domain works, you can't be sure out of context what the status of the work is when published outside the US. See e.g. http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#317. I've found that many US government lawyers dealing with open source seem to assume that 17 USC 105 operates worldwide (this sometimes comes up in the form of a refusal to sign CLAs because 'there is no copyright to license'). Also with statutory public domain works you have the same old MXM/CC0 inconsistency problem in a different form. Consider the case of public domain source code created by a US government employee, having features covered by a patent held by the US government. - RF ___ 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] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
Karl Fogel scripsit: The patent issue would apply just as much if it were MIT- or BSD-licensed, though, and we'd call it open source then, right? Indeed. We may not be in the business of approving licenses without patent grants any more, but nobody can say that licenses that don't grant patent rights explicitly are not open-source licenses. If the US government were to publish such notice on a given work -- say, if standardized language for doing so were approved by the OSI :-) That's essentially what the NASA Open Source Agreement does http://opensource.org/licenses/NASA-1.3. It's already fully templated (except for the name, which is inessential), and U.S. government employees should be urged to use it. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org Most people are much more ignorant about language than they are about [other subjects], but they reckon that because they can talk and read and write, their opinions about talking and reading and writing are as well informed as anybody's. And since I have DNA, I'm entitled to carry on at length about genetics without bothering to learn anything about it. Not. --Mark Liberman ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
Henrik Ingo scripsit: Does the US government grant itself patents, and if so, what does it do with those patents? In the case of 6630507, they apply criminal sanctions to people who seek to make use of the patented technology. Google for [patent 6630507]. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
On Sat, 3 May 2014 22:07:19 +0300 Henrik Ingo henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi wrote: Does the US government grant itself patents, Yes. and if so, what does it do with those patents? Many are licensed to the private sector for revenue. - RF ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
On Sat, 03 May 2014 14:00:53 -0500 Karl Fogel kfo...@red-bean.com wrote: Richard Fontana font...@sharpeleven.org writes: Also with statutory public domain works you have the same old MXM/CC0 inconsistency problem in a different form. Consider the case of public domain source code created by a US government employee, having features covered by a patent held by the US government. The patent issue would apply just as much if it were MIT- or BSD-licensed, though, and we'd call it open source then, right? Unless perhaps the situation -- a statute that says that US government works are in the copyright public domain, with no counterpart provision in the Patent Act -- is more akin to CC0, and depending on whether you'd call CC0-covered source code open source. http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#317 seems to indicate that we'd need an explicit notice that the U.S. government will not claim any copyright on the work in jurisdictions outside the U.S. If the US government were to publish such notice on a given work -- say, if standardized language for doing so were approved by the OSI :-) -- then would there be any sense in which the work would not be compliant with the OSD? E.g., would its open-sourceness be materially different from an MIT-licensed work? When the MXM license was considered, some people pointed to OSD #7 as suggesting that a sufficiently narrowly-drawn patent license grant in a license would not be Open Source. This was the problem I raised when CC0 was submitted. It was the inconsistency. It depends on your view of how the OSD applies to patents. - RF ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
Richard Fontana scripsit: When the MXM license was considered, some people pointed to OSD #7 as suggesting that a sufficiently narrowly-drawn patent license grant in a license would not be Open Source. This was the problem I raised when CC0 was submitted. It was the inconsistency. It depends on your view of how the OSD applies to patents. Since it nowhere mentions them, I don't see how it can apply to them. #7 merely says that licenses of the form You get rights a, b, and c, whereas your transferees only get rights a and b, possibly qualified by unless they sign this, aren't open-source licenses. I continue to think that our CC0 decision was wrong insofar as it can be read as saying that the CC0 license is not an open-source (as opposed to OSI Certified) license. There may be reasons not to certify it, but not to deny that it is open source. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org Female celebrity stalker, on a hot morning in Cairo: Imagine, Colonel Lawrence, ninety-two already! El Auruns's reply: Many happy returns of the day! ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] Creative Commons license compatibility draft published
Greetings! Tangentially related to this list, but I hope that many of you will be interested: Creative Commons has published a draft of its process and criteria for determining licenses compatible with the 4.0 ShareAlike licenses. This is still a draft and open for community consultation until the 28th of May, and we would welcome comments from the free/open licensing community. The draft is here: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/ShareAlike_compatibility_process_and_criteria The main venue for discussion is the cc-licenses mailing list: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses Thanks, Kat -- Kat Walsh, Counsel, Creative Commons IM/IRC/@/etc: mindspillage * phone: please email first Help us support the commons: https://creativecommons.net/donate/ California Registered In-House Counsel #801759 CC does not and cannot give legal advice. If you need legal advice, please consult your attorney. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
This thread on GitHub gets (needlessly?) complicated. It's about a public-domain software work put out by the U.S. government, and there's no clarity on whether calling it open source and citing the OSI's definition of the term would be appropriate: https://github.com/ngageoint/geoevents/issues/2#issuecomment-41739913 Someone cites our FAQ item on it (which, as its primary author, I found tickled my vanity :-) ), but really, I wish they didn't have to cite the OSI FAQ and could instead just say yup, public domain is open source. The things we don't like about public domain (lack of explicit liability limitation, different definitions in different jurisdictions) are not in themselves counter to the OSD, after all. Thoughts? Should OSI look for a route to say that public domain works (like ones put out by the U.S. government) are open source too, or is it just too problematic? Stirring the pot, -Karl ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
Hello Karl, On 02-05-14 14:55, Karl Fogel wrote: This thread on GitHub gets (needlessly?) complicated. It's about a public-domain software work put out by the U.S. government, and there's no clarity on whether calling it open source and citing the OSI's definition of the term would be appropriate: https://github.com/ngageoint/geoevents/issues/2#issuecomment-41739913 Someone cites our FAQ item on it (which, as its primary author, I found tickled my vanity :-) ), but really, I wish they didn't have to cite the OSI FAQ and could instead just say yup, public domain is open source. The things we don't like about public domain (lack of explicit liability limitation, different definitions in different jurisdictions) are not in themselves counter to the OSD, after all. Thoughts? Should OSI look for a route to say that public domain works (like ones put out by the U.S. government) are open source too, or is it just too problematic? My understanding is that works by the U.S. government are not entitled to domestic copyright protection under U.S. law. The U.S. government asserts that it can still hold the copyright to those works in other countries. So, that particular example seems problematic. -- Kuno. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?
On Fri, 02 May 2014 14:55:55 -0500 Karl Fogel kfo...@red-bean.com wrote: This thread on GitHub gets (needlessly?) complicated. It's about a public-domain software work put out by the U.S. government, and there's no clarity on whether calling it open source and citing the OSI's definition of the term would be appropriate: https://github.com/ngageoint/geoevents/issues/2#issuecomment-41739913 Someone cites our FAQ item on it (which, as its primary author, I found tickled my vanity :-) ), but really, I wish they didn't have to cite the OSI FAQ and could instead just say yup, public domain is open source. The things we don't like about public domain (lack of explicit liability limitation, different definitions in different jurisdictions) are not in themselves counter to the OSD, after all. Thoughts? Should OSI look for a route to say that public domain works (like ones put out by the U.S. government) are open source too, or is it just too problematic? This work's authors seem to explicitly say that they are dedicating it to the public domain, not merely (or explicitly at all, as far as I can see here) relying on the notion of statutory public domain for US government works. I'd argue those are two different concepts of public domain (one of which is really something more akin to the effect achieved by CC0). With statutory public domain works, you can't be sure out of context what the status of the work is when published outside the US. See e.g. http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#317. I've found that many US government lawyers dealing with open source seem to assume that 17 USC 105 operates worldwide (this sometimes comes up in the form of a refusal to sign CLAs because 'there is no copyright to license'). Also with statutory public domain works you have the same old MXM/CC0 inconsistency problem in a different form. Consider the case of public domain source code created by a US government employee, having features covered by a patent held by the US government. - RF ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry (and potential website page?) on why standard licenses?
Note that the GPL is one of the least-understood licenses around, even by some of its supporters who make the most outrageous claims about linking. :-) From professional experience I see some non-GPL supporters top the charts in outrageous claims about GPL and linking. A particularly interesting case started with it's just a little bit on a dialog and then accounted a third of the external resources adopted by a proprietary product as GPL. So I guess we can find examples in both sides. If we are looking for a replacement to standard (which in my opinion seemed reasonable when explained and used within a specific context), then I'd guess even notorious could become a candidate on a voting poll if the intention is to find an accurate term that encompasses these licenses. With kind regards, Nuno Brito --- spdx: http://triplecheck.de/download phone: +49 615 146 03187 ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] A simple, no-requirements license.
On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 10:06 AM, Gervase Markham g...@mozilla.org wrote: On 23/04/14 16:59, Buck Golemon wrote: and another package's license says modified versions cannot contain additional attribution requirements. I don't know of any licenses which say that. Can you point me at an example? I cannot. I don't have broad knowledge of license terms. My question is: Is it possible to have an MIT-like license with no requirements on derivative works? (I'm referring to this clause: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.) While I don't know whether the MIT requirements cause issues with any OSI or other popular license, it's factual that there is a demand for an absolutely-permissive open-source license, and until there is an OSI-vetted solution, people will continue to use or invent other solutions (think of: sqlite, cc0, unlicense, wtfpl). The wtfpl, the unlicense and other public domain attributions are crayon licenses, while the cc0 is too complex and not OSI-approved besides, so I come here asking for help in making a simple yet legally sound license which fills this demand. I'm trying to follow up on the suggested course of action in these posts: * http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2012-February/000243.html * http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2012-January/47.html ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
[License-discuss] Open source attribution
If I am developing a commercial software that is invoking an open source platform that has Apache 2.0 licence, and that open source platform uses other open source libraries or platforms, in the attribution of the open source platform, do I need to include all attributions of the open source libraries or platforms used by the one I directly invoke? A good example is JBoss. It uses many other open source libraries with various OSS licensing terms. Should I only attribute Jboss or Jboss + all OSS included by Jboss? William ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry (and potential website page?) on why standard licenses?
Thanks, Larry. The list is not designed exactly for the purpose of this discussion, but I thought it might provide some useful, objective data. Certainly not taking anything personally. All of your questions are good questions; most really important if one is recommending licenses which Black Duck generally, and the list absolutely, does not. The list is simply a ranking by “number of unique programs (in the Black Duck KnowledgeBase) under the license.” We call them as we see them, i.e. identifying the license declared for each project. So, while you might make a great point about the 2- and 3-clause BSD, we make the distinction and let lawyers decide whether they “give a damn about” it. We endeavor to capture any software freely available on the Internet and thus end up a long tail of associated licenses which are not strictly open source licenses. And, yes, we keep old projects and deprecated licenses. Understand that one of the key use cases the data are meant to support is scanning code to discover its composition, and often old components (with old licenses) turn up in new code. For lawyers who review code, the message of the top 20 list is that there’s a clear Paredo distribution; if you understand the top 10 or 20, you are in reasonable shape. This is back to Luis’ original point of which we should not lose sight; there are a bunch of good reasons to steer developers towards a well-understood licenses. Hey maybe “well-understood” is a good alternative to “standard. From: Lawrence Rosen lro...@rosenlaw.commailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com Reply-To: lro...@rosenlaw.commailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com, license-discuss@opensource.orgmailto:license-discuss@opensource.org Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 16:06:41 -0700 To: license-discuss@opensource.orgmailto:license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry (and potential website page?) on why standard licenses? Hi Philip, Thanks for the Black Duck Top 20 list of open source licenses. Your list is the best around, so please don't take the following criticism too personally. But this list demonstrates that even the ways that we calculate popularity are flawed. For example: · Are GPLv2 and GPLv3 really one license nowadays with total 38% popularity, or still two licenses? [Ben Tilly already made that suggestion on this list.] And the classpath exception version of the GPL (at 1%) qualifies that license for yet a third spot on your Top 20 list? · Same with the LGPL; is that one license at (5% and 2%, respectively) or one license at 7%? · Are these numbers based on lines of code created, numbers of unique programs under the license, or number of copies of the software actually distributed? For example, under what criteria does the zlib/libpng license count? Wikipedia describes that license as intended for two specific software libraries but also used by many other free software packages. That comment in Wikipedia is as vague and uninformative as the 1% that you cite in your table. I say this to point out that numbers on a list need to be *interpreted* and *scaled* to be useful. · Is there any value to listing the 2-clause and the 3-clause BSD licenses separately, given that no company lawyer in the world gives a damn about the distinctions between them? Meanwhile, every conversation about the BSD licenses on these OSI email lists concludes with the following great suggestion: Why don't you use the Apache License 2.0 instead? If OSI is ever going to recommend answers to easy legal questions, surely this is among them. It serves absolutely no useful purpose at this stage of our maturity to list each version of the BSD license separately – not even the two you placed on your list. · You list the CDDL, a license created by a company that no longer exists and whose successor company doesn't use it. Do we still count deprecated licenses for as long as a even single copy of that code resides in the wild? Not only that, but two versions of that single obsolete license are individually listed in the Top 20. · Wikipedia refers to the CPOL license as mainly applied to content that is being published on a single community site for software developers known as The Code Project. Wikipedia further reports that the CPOL license is neither open as defined by OSI nor free as defined by FSF. Why is it on your list at all? /Larry -Original Message- From: Philip Odence [mailto:pode...@blackducksoftware.com] Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 2:48 PM To: license-discuss@opensource.orgmailto:license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry (and potential website page?) on why standard licenses? In case it helps, Black Duck publishes a top licenses list based on the number of projects in our KnowledgeBase (out of a current total of about a million) that utilize each respective license. http
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry (and potential website page?) on why standard licenses?
Philip Odence suggested: Hey maybe well-understood is a good alternative to standard. Note that the GPL is one of the least-understood licenses around, even by some of its supporters who make the most outrageous claims about linking. :-) /Larry From: Philip Odence [mailto:pode...@blackducksoftware.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 4:52 AM To: lro...@rosenlaw.com; license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry (and potential website page?) on why standard licenses? snip ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry (and potential website page?) on why standard licenses?
touché Maybe than “licenses that people think they understand From: Lawrence Rosen lro...@rosenlaw.commailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com Reply-To: lro...@rosenlaw.commailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com, license-discuss@opensource.orgmailto:license-discuss@opensource.org Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 08:33:10 -0700 To: license-discuss@opensource.orgmailto:license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry (and potential website page?) on why standard licenses? Philip Odence suggested: Hey maybe “well-understood” is a good alternative to “standard. Note that the GPL is one of the least-understood licenses around, even by some of its supporters who make the most outrageous claims about linking. :-) /Larry From: Philip Odence [mailto:pode...@blackducksoftware.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 4:52 AM To: lro...@rosenlaw.commailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com; license-discuss@opensource.orgmailto:license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry (and potential website page?) on why standard licenses? snip ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.orgmailto: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
