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- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:10:07 -0800
- From: "Kyle E. Mitchell" <kyle@kemitchell.com>
- To: License submissions for OSI review <license-review@opensource.org>
- Subject: Re: [License-review] For Approval: Rewrite of License Zero
- Reciprocal Public License
- Message-ID: <20171114181007.GL15549@dev.kemitchell.com>
- References: <20171027202935.GA5874@dev.kemitchell.com>
- <CAK2MWOta_sCbfiztv=yfT_m6xBNnMqWPUy=iZukFWmypb-UdzA@mail.gmail.com>
- <20171107224929.GK25059@dev.kemitchell.com>
- <CAK2MWOvhJCMFimdGSV5xw2MF8CzfjZt1DKJZKXh1GGeKMngiTQ@mail.gmail.com>
- <20171108075050.GQ25059@dev.kemitchell.com>
- <CAK2MWOvXOQNvRsNXyQd06o0jw9g0fc=GB4zYJVYsaHzbW+fOdg@mail.gmail.com>
- <CAD2gp_QE_0dz7m3nE8uMECMSYkXD64FP=r6s4LoHx_n7obQNCQ@mail.gmail.com>
- <CAK2MWOt2X8XHfUEtrDp4Tzu9vGe2fD9+ydV4BUir08CgnTEksQ@mail.gmail.com>
- <34f8ca5c-e16b-51a7-ce0f-b2ec88714a1f@piana.eu>
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- In-Reply-To: <34f8ca5c-e16b-51a7-ce0f-b2ec88714a1f@piana.eu>
- User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12)
- On 2017-11-08 19:11, Carlo Piana wrote:
- > On 08/11/2017 18:51, Bruce Perens wrote:
- > > On Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at 9:34 AM, John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org
- > > <mailto:cowan@ccil.org>> wrote:
- > > On Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at 11:27 AM, Bruce Perens <bruce@perens.com
- > > <mailto:bruce@perens.com>> wrote:
- > > In your license, you are asking for an *unrelated* program to
- > > be made Open Source due to a condition predicated on a
- > > specific form of use. Besides being clearly against OSD # 6
- > > (and sorry, OSI is not now required to announce this obvious
- > > fact),
- > >
- > > I don't see this. If OSD #6 means, or is interpreted to mean, "no
- > > discrimination against particular tasks", then I can see it, and
- > > that's a license prohibition I would support. But I have trouble
- > > reading it into the text of #6. Can you explicate?
- > >
- > > Here is the relevant L0-R text:
- > >
- > > /5. If you run this software to analyze, modify, or generate
- > > software, you must release source code for that software./
- > > /
- > > /
- > > Analysis, modification, and generation of software are a field of
- > > endeavor under OSD # 6. OSD #2 says the /program /must include source
- > > code, so it overrides any provision in OSD # 6 that would prevent the
- > > program from having source code. But not /other /programs. So, GPL OK,
- > > King Midas not OK.
- > >
- > > We strengthen this with OSD # 9 requiring that the license not bind to
- > > other software that is simply distributed with the Open Source.
- >
- > [...]
- >
- > Il love this King Midas analogy. It is quite graphic and I could not
- > agree more with Bruce. The provision Bruce has extracted is not an
- > acceptable one in open source. I have already stated my case, many
- > others have, I stand firm in my belief. I am shocked we are still
- > arguing something that should have been long settled by now.
- Midas starved because his touch turned his food into gold he
- couldn't eat. I recall a version where he turns a daughter
- to gold, too. Very sad.
- That's what proprietary software does to permissively
- licensed code. Building on permissively licensed code makes
- a proprietary program better, and therefore more marketable.
- The open components transform from raw materials into gold.
- But the proprietary touch also hardens them, locks them up
- behind confidentiality and restrictive terms like bullion in
- a vault. That prevents anyone from further growing and
- developing them in application, where they matter most. So
- the Open Source involved becomes undigestable for users and
- the developer community, impossible to break down and turn
- into what's needed.
- Companies don't starve for lack of food. Gold is what they
- need to stay alive. But still their offspring---products and
- services---could often bring more gold, long term, if they
- stayed open, and developed.
- Reciprocal licenses are the grace Midas longed for when he
- tasted gold in his mouth. They encourage turning proprietary
- code, petrified for the sake of immediate merchantability,
- into code that's malleable, that lives again, that can grow
- in intrinsic value over time. Their touch may be extensive,
- but what they touch turns into open source. Not sad at all!
- "Reciprocal" is a great name for these licenses, if I don't
- say so myself, because give and take is what they're about.
- There's a deal on offer---use my code, but share yours
- back---that's very appealing, but nobody has to accept it.
- No proprietary project is "infected" with reciprocal
- licensing any more than Ebenezer Scrooge is "infected" with
- Christmas, another great mutual-giving tradition.
- > Our world has fought long battles against the characterization of
- > copyleft as "viral", which in turn is intended in the pejorative
- > "infectious", a frivolous yet still today damaging concept that detracts
- > many from using copyleft software. A license containing such language
- > would be indeed flat out infectious, the legal equivalent of a virus.
- > The fact that this would also be legally sound, just worsens the
- > situation. Let's imagine a Patrick McHardy using that clause. You must
- > be kidding me.
- I'm so grateful to those who fought anti-copyleft FUD in its
- heyday. Many on this list were directly involved, I know.
- That nonsense ought to stay in its grave, where you put it.
- And the community is freer to advance since you did. Heck, a
- principal corporate proponent of that rhetoric is recently a
- member of OSI!
- FUD like "viral" wasn't wrong because it exaggerated how
- strong reciprocal licenses were at the time. It won't become
- true as reciprocal licenses get stronger. Viral license FUD
- is, was, and always will be basically, fundamentally,
- intentionally false. A deception.
- Courts do not issue orders to comply with privately drafted
- license conditions. No court applying law I know, hearing a
- lawsuit about GPL or L0-R software, would ever issue an
- order to release and publicly license proprietary source
- code. If they find a licensee exceeded their permission by
- failing to meet conditions, with no legal excuse or defense,
- they'll order payment of money damages, possibly attorneys'
- fees, and perhaps issue an order to stop using the software.
- I believe that's it.
- I've stopped posting revisions of L0-R's license text so
- frequently, because that proved hard to follow on the list.
- But here's my current automatic-forgiveness language, akin
- to GPLv3 section 8:
- Any unknowing failure to meet [the reciprocity conditions]
- is excused if you release source code as required, or stop
- doing anything requiring permission under this license, in
- 30 days of learning that you were required to release.
- If Patrick McHardy sends you a threat letter about L0-R code
- you didn't know you were infringing, you have 30 days to
- stop using his code, grep his name in your codebases, and
- put a policy in place to keep it out going forward. Then you
- get to write him a letter saying he can go pound sand. Send
- me a copy, and I'll post it on my website, frame a copy, and
- hang it in my office.
- That's how I read the language above. If that's not how it
- reads to you, let me know. I want to fix it.
- ---
- I have great respect for the voices and contributions of
- those arguing against conformance. But I don't understand
- your positions. Calls that it's obvious, or that the
- contrary is absurd, don't help anyone who doesn't already
- agree with you to understand. They block consensus, sure.
- But if consensus is the goal, in one direction or another,
- blocks are cause to talk more, not less.
- --
- Kyle Mitchell, attorney // Oakland // (510) 712 - 0933
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