Back home from traveling, I believe the ball is still in your court on this?
Rob On 12/10/2015 08:58 AM, Richard Fontana wrote: > I don't think that is a good idea. > > I have described the situation to Christian Bundy, the person who > submitted the Free Public License, with a link to this discussion. He > said he would get back to me by the end of the week. If Christian does > not recommend otherwise I will keep things as they currently are on > the OSI website. > > Richard > > > On Thu, Dec 10, 2015 at 07:31:00AM +0000, J Lovejoy wrote: >> Having more of a think on this - It may be more appropriate for Rob to talk >> to the “Free Public License” folks. >> Rob - your thoughts? >> >> Cheers, >> Jilayne >> >> >>> >>> On Tue, Dec 08, 2015 at 06:56:09AM -0500, Richard Fontana wrote: >>>> Hi Jilayne, >>>> >>>> No but that was my thought as well after reading Rob's response. I >>>> will check. >>>> >>>> Thanks, >>>> Richard >>>> >>>> >>>> On Tue, Dec 08, 2015 at 08:16:15AM +0000, J Lovejoy wrote: >>>>> Richard, >>>>> >>>>> Has anyone from OSI gone back to the folks who submitted the “Free Public >>>>> License” and ask if they mind or care if the name that Rob prefers is >>>>> used instead of the one they suggested? Seems like that could >>>>> potentially be an easy solution. >>>>> >>>>> Jilayne >>>>> >>>>> SPDX Legal Team co-lead >>>>> opensou...@jilayne.com >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On Dec 8, 2015, at 6:17 AM, Rob Landley <r...@landley.net> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> The tl;dr of this whole email is "I humbly ask SPDX to retain both its >>>>>> original long and short names for zero clause BSD as the only SDPX >>>>>> approved name for this license". >>>>>> >>>>>> On 12/07/2015 01:56 PM, Richard Fontana wrote: >>>>>>> On Mon, Dec 07, 2015 at 07:30:18PM +0000, J Lovejoy wrote: >>>>>>> 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. >>>>>> >>>>>> "I have no problem, and here it is..." >>>>>> >>>>>>> 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. >>>>>> >>>>>> So you still haven't looked back at the SPDX approval process for zero >>>>>> clause BSD and noticed they raised that objection then, and got an >>>>>> answer? >>>>>> >>>>>> http://lists.spdx.org/pipermail/spdx-legal/2015-June/001457.html >>>>>> >>>>>> If the association between this license and ISC was important, why >>>>>> didn't OSI's name for it mention ISC instead of making up a new name? >>>>>> >>>>>> This is not the only public domain license derived from BSD licenses in >>>>>> the wild. Here's one that did it by cutting down (I think, they don't >>>>>> bother to specify) FreeBSD's license: >>>>>> >>>>>> http://openwall.info/wiki/john/licensing >>>>>> >>>>>> And that page links to another project using a variant that cut it down >>>>>> a different way (also removing the virality but keeping the disclaimer). >>>>>> Lots of people have done this lots of ways over the years. >>>>>> >>>>>> And yet despite the many possible starting and ending points to strip >>>>>> licenses down to public domain variants, OSI approved _exactly_ the same >>>>>> text I chose. Which wasn't even submitted to OSI until a month after >>>>>> SPDX published their decision to approve it, a year after Android merged >>>>>> it, and two and a half years after I'd publicly started using it on a >>>>>> project that Linux Weekly News has covered multiple times. >>>>>> >>>>>> Not noticing _me_ is understandable, although it's not like I was being >>>>>> quiet about it (unless you consider giving licensing talks ala >>>>>> https://archive.org/download/OhioLinuxfest2013/24-Rob_Landley-The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Copyleft.mp3 >>>>>> and http://2014.texaslinuxfest.org/content/rise-and-fall-copyleft.html >>>>>> and such to be "quiet"). >>>>>> >>>>>> I could even understand not noticing what Android was doing, although >>>>>> the rest of the industry seems to be paying attention. (The android >>>>>> command line is not a peripheral part of android, I got invited to Linux >>>>>> Plumber's to talk about this a couple months back, >>>>>> https://linuxplumbersconf.org/2015/ocw/proposals/2871 and yes I went >>>>>> over the licensing aspect at length in that talk and oh look, >>>>>> https://lwn.net/Articles/657139/ not only covers my talk by they linked >>>>>> to my license page, using my license's name as the link text. September >>>>>> 14 is 2 weeks after the submission OSI acted upon, so presumably right >>>>>> during OSI's analysis period?) >>>>>> >>>>>> OSI failing to notice any of that doesn't surprise me. But OSI didn't >>>>>> notice what _SPDX_ was doing, despite claiming to want to use SPDX >>>>>> identifiers and thus having pretty much a DUTY to keep up there, and is >>>>>> now asking SPDX to change to accommodate the results. >>>>>> >>>>>> That's the part I don't get. >>>>>> >>>>>> P.S. The JTR "BSD-like" license above recently came back to my attention >>>>>> because although it was initially introduced just for new code (in an >>>>>> otherwise GPLv2 project), a few days ago they started a concerted effort >>>>>> to clean out their existing codebase so it can all go under this public >>>>>> domain "BSD" license: >>>>>> >>>>>> http://www.openwall.com/lists/john-users/2015/12/04/2 >>>>>> >>>>>> I.E. This GPL->PD trend is ongoing, and likely to continue for the >>>>>> foreseeable future. That's why it's been a big enough issue for me to >>>>>> keep talking about it at conferences for almost three years now. >>>>>> >>>>>> I seem to be unusually careful in how I handle licensing for an open >>>>>> source developer, but people who _haven't_ been a plaintiff in multiple >>>>>> GPL enforcement suits and who weren't hired as a consultant by IBM's >>>>>> lawyers to help defend against the SCO lawsuit and _don't_ respond to >>>>>> people like Bruce Perens with https://busybox.net/~landley/forensics.txt >>>>>> are generally doing this stuff in a much more ad-hoc way that >>>>>> intentionally keeps lawyers as far away as possible. So legal groups may >>>>>> not be promptly hearing directly about it from them, but the return to >>>>>> public domain licensing isn't exactly a new issue out in the community. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 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. >>>>>> >>>>>> By the time this license was submitted to OSI, SPDX had already >>>>>> published its decision to approve it under the original BSD Zero Clause >>>>>> name a month and change earlier, Android had merged it the previous >>>>>> year, and I'd been publicly using it for 2 and 1/2 years in a project >>>>>> covered on multiple occasions by Linux Weekly news. >>>>>> >>>>>> Suggesting that SPDX amend an established decision predating the >>>>>> _submission_ OSI acted upon (let alone OSI's approval process), entirely >>>>>> because OSI did not do its homework, is not a comforting precedent. >>>>>> >>>>>> Until this all instances of this particular license being cut down in >>>>>> this particular way that I was aware of traced back to my doing so. >>>>>> Other people have cut down plenty of other licenses in other ways for >>>>>> this purpose, there are lots of starting and stopping points for a >>>>>> "public domain license". I was trying to come up with one that corporate >>>>>> legal departments could standardize on and that github could offer in >>>>>> its dropdown, and felt the OpenBSD license text best served my purpose >>>>>> there. I also emphasized that it was an existing license with half a >>>>>> sentence removed as part of this sales pitch. >>>>>> >>>>>> Perhaps the wording and the timing of OSI's submission, with >>>>>> approximately the same sales pitch as I gave in my talks and wrote up on >>>>>> my website, are just coincidences. I don't care about plagiarism or >>>>>> attribution here. What I am annoyed by is that SPDX's approval of the >>>>>> license I've been using for years under the name I've been using for >>>>>> years is now _retroactively_ threatened by OSI's actions. SPDX refusing >>>>>> to approve it would have been their right. (And given they already have >>>>>> https://spdx.org/licenses/Unlicense.html and >>>>>> https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html would even have been >>>>>> understandable.) >>>>>> >>>>>> OSI coming along after the fact and going "oh, we renamed a license that >>>>>> already exists, didn't even start the process until well after your >>>>>> decision was published, so clearly YOU should change" is just disturbing. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 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. >>>>>> >>>>>> Great, eCos already broke your policy, moot point then. You can stop >>>>>> expecting 100% correspondence on every license now and just use the ones >>>>>> you find convenient. Glad we could resolve this. >>>>>> >>>>>> (You're the one who brought it up...?) >>>>>> >>>>>>>> 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, >>>>>> >>>>>> I also would like to avoid the SPDX identifier(s) changing. >>>>>> >>>>>>> but rather that two identifiers be adopted, each being considered >>>>>>> equally official in an SPDX sense. >>>>>> >>>>>> Oh please no. >>>>>> >>>>>> First, two names for the same thing blunts the marketing pitch. Second, >>>>>> the venn diagram of "programmers who want something with Free in the >>>>>> name" and "programmers who want to get as far away from copyleft as >>>>>> possible" is basically two discrete circles. Attaching part of the Free >>>>>> Software Foundation's name on this license would be detrimental to what >>>>>> I'm trying to accomplish (increasing acceptance of public domain >>>>>> licensing and migrating github users off of "no license specified"). >>>>>> >>>>>>> Ultimately, the issue isn't too important, >>>>>> >>>>>> If it doesn't affect what SPDX does, I agree. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 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. >>>>>> >>>>>> Then... don't use it? >>>>>> >>>>>> OSI failed to notice that SPDX had already approved a nearly identical >>>>>> license a month and change before OSI even received its submission. I >>>>>> noticed the approval over a month before your license's submission date >>>>>> by checking SPDX's public spreadsheet of upcoming license approvals. >>>>>> >>>>>> That OSI did _not_ do this, despite OSI's desire to use SPDX >>>>>> identifiers, was a failure on OSI's part. You've brought up eCos to >>>>>> indicate that this is not a unique failure. >>>>>> >>>>>> I don't see how resolving the resulting conflict is SPDX's problem? >>>>>> >>>>>>>> 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. >>>>>> >>>>>> Richard Stallman has spent well over a decade attempting to associate >>>>>> "free software" with copyleft. If you google for "free public software" >>>>>> the first hit is http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.en.html (and >>>>>> if you add "license" the first hit is the FSF's GPLv3 page). This is not >>>>>> a neutral term when discussing licenses. >>>>>> >>>>>> I'd really rather ignore OSI entirely than explain that after zero >>>>>> clause bsd had been in use for years, after it had been merged into >>>>>> android and tizen, and after SPDX had published a decision to approve >>>>>> it, OSI randomly accepted the same license under a different and >>>>>> misleading name because this guy https://github.com/christianbundy said >>>>>> so and OSI didn't do its homework. (Ok, that photo with the caption >>>>>> "this guy" would make an entertaining slide, but entertaining damage >>>>>> control is still damage control.) >>>>>> >>>>>> But I doubt it will come up if SPDX leaves the existing names in place. >>>>>> I was asked to submit this license to SPDX because people care about >>>>>> that. Nobody ever asked me to submit it to OSI. >>>>>> >>>>>> Rob >>>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Spdx-legal mailing list >>> Spdx-legal@lists.spdx.org >>> https://lists.spdx.org/mailman/listinfo/spdx-legal >> >> >> >> SPDX Legal Team co-lead >> opensou...@jilayne.com >> >> > _______________________________________________ Spdx-legal mailing list Spdx-legal@lists.spdx.org https://lists.spdx.org/mailman/listinfo/spdx-legal
