On Mon, Dec 07, 2015 at 07:30:18PM +0000, J Lovejoy wrote:
> Correct me if I’m wrong, but the suggestion seems to be:
>
> OSI has now posted the "Free Public License 1.0.0" and wants to use the short
> identifier FPL-1.0.0
Well that identifier (or something else that bears some similarity to
the license name as approved by the OSI) is my own suggestion, not the
view of the whole OSI board. I haven't bothered to explain this issue
to the board, as I'm not sure it's that significant.
> This license is, according to the SPDX Matching Guidelines, the same license
> the Rob submitted previously and which was added to SPDX License List v2.2 as
> "BSD Zero Clause License” using the short identifier 0BSD
>
> Now, the OSI wants SPDX to change its short identifier to FPL-1.0.0 - is that
> right? And if so, why would you want us to do that?
My reasoning is as follows:
1) The license that was submitted to and approved by the OSI is called
the 'Free Public License 1.0.0'. I note that Rob Landley chose not to
submit the Zero Clause BSD License for OSI approval as of course is
his prerogative.
2) I think it is confusing to have a short identifier that looks
nothing like the name of the thing, especially given that most if not
all of the SPDX short identifiers have some clear relationship to the
name of the license being identified.
3) While I have no inherent problem with the name 'Zero Clause BSD
License', it does bother me that the name has 'BSD' in it but the
license text is not clearly descended from the BSD license family. In
this sense both the name and the identifier are flawed. There is no
parallelism between the Zero Clause BSD License and the well-known
3-clause and 2-clause BSD licenses. I would probably not be objecting
to the identifier if it were '0ISC' rather than '0BSD' because the
Zero Clause BSD License is a stripped-down ISC license, not a
stripped-down BSD license.
4) Since I am coming at this from a viewpoint that is biased in favor
of the name of the license as submitted to the OSI, I can only object
to the idea that OSI should be expected to apply the identifier '0BSD'
to a license called the Free Public License 1.0.0.
5) For some time there's been some desire on the part of the OSI to
make use of the SPDX identifiers, and you can see evidence of this on
the OSI website. But I think with the Free Public License 1.0.0 and
also the recently-approved eCos License version 2.0 this policy has
reached a breaking point. In the case of eCos we can't seriously be
expected to entertain use of a short identifier that is longer than
the name of the license.
> We endeavor not to change the short identifiers unless there is an extremely
> compelling reason and users of the SPDX License List (of which there are
> many) rely on us to not make such changes unnecessarily. I’m not sure I see
> the compelling reason here, especially when, as Rob has now told us, part of
> the reason he submitted the license to be on the SPDX License List was as per
> the request of a large company using the SPDX short identifiers.
I'm not suggesting that the identifier be changed, but rather that two
identifiers be adopted, each being considered equally official in an
SPDX sense.
Ultimately, the issue isn't too important, but I simply can't bring
myself to use "0BSD" on the OSI website in the manner in which other
SPDX short identifiers have now been used. (Although as noted I did
use '0BSD' in my cross-referencing of the Zero Clause BSD License to
the Free Public License.) Similarly, I can't bring myself to use the
lengthy GPL exception identifier in connection with the eCos License.
Richard
> We do have some flexibility with the full name, which would be reasonably to
> change to something like, "BSD Zero Clause / Free Public License 1.0.0”
> (clunky, perhaps) and then also add a note as Richard did explaining the
> similarity-yet-name-variation-possibility. However, changing the short
> identifier is a much more serious consideration. We have a legal call this
> Thursday, so any info as to why we should change that part or if my above
> idea would be amenable to all would be helpful.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jilayne
>
> SPDX Legal Team co-lead
> opensou...@jilayne.com
>
>
> > On Dec 5, 2015, at 12:36 PM, Richard Fontana <font...@opensource.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, Dec 05, 2015 at 12:57:43AM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> >> As far as I can tell, OSI continues to be unaware that unlicense.org or
> >> creative commons zero even exist.
> >
> > The OSI is aware of them. There's actually been interest for some time
> > in getting OSI approval of a license (or license-like instrument) in
> > this category, what I've recently been calling 'ultrapermissive'. CC0
> > was actually submitted by Creative Commons for OSI approval a few
> > years ago. The submission was withdrawn because of controversy over
> > clause 4a in CC0 ("No ... patent rights held by Affirmer are waived,
> > abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this
> > document."). The Unlicense hasn't been submitted for approval.
> >
> > I have now modified http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical to
> > include Zero Clause BSD License (0BSD) with a cross reference to the
> > Free Public License, and I have also added the following prefatory
> > text to http://opensource.org/licenses/FPL-1.0.0:
> > "Note: There is a license that is identical to the Free Public License
> > 1.0.0 called the Zero Clause BSD License. Apart from the name, the
> > only difference is that the Zero Clause BSD License has generally been
> > used with a copyright notice, while the Free Public License has
> > generally been used without a copyright notice."
> >
> > Hopefully that will remove whatever possibility there was of anyone
> > thinking the Zero Clause BSD License (for those who choose to call it
> > that) is not now OSI-approved by virtue of the approval of the Free
> > Public License.
> >
> > However I still recommend that the SPDX group come up with a short
> > identifier for the Free Public License that is different from "0BSD";
> > I'm going to pretend that it would be "FPL-1.0.0".
> >
> > Richard
> >
> >
> >
>
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