Good morning: I concur with Phil Odence and David Wheeler on the ground that the language "at issue" is an operative license term governing --and in this case restricting--conduct, not simply disclaiming a warranty. As such, it violates Freedom 0 as Matija initially pointed out.
Here is the sentence we are all intimately aware of: You acknowledge that this software is not designed, licensed or intended for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility. The language is disjunctive, which, based on contract construction principles, is interpreted to mean that any of the three elements--designed, intended, licensed--satisfies the predicate of the clause. There is nothing surprising in that rule of construction; any programmer applies the same rule pretty regularly. Applying that rule, the sentence can be read as follows: “You acknowledge that this software is not licensed for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility.” That's clearly a license term and clearly a content/use restriction. This kind of content restriction renders the license non-open. I do not see this as any kind of edge case. (I agree with Daniel's point 4 from his e-mail this morning.) So, should we add it or not? I can appreciate the arguments on either side of the question. Both sides make quality points. Because this is so plainly non-open, I lean on not including it. I acknowledge Tom's point that our inclusion guidelines do not require strict compliance. But use restrictions are pretty black and white in my mind. As Daniel pointed out (point 3 from his earlier email), SPDX has a mechanism to allow anybody to maintain SDPX info of non-FOSS licenses. At some point in time, maybe SPDX's mission will expand to be able to enable maintenance of all licenses such that it can be used to create a comprehensive bill of materials for all licenses in a package--open, proprietary, and whatever lies in between. But that is not where we are now. * * * * * * * * * * * * THV
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