On 01/16/2013 10:39 AM, Tom Marble wrote:
One thought I had about the "chicken and egg" license
approval problem is to use disjunctive licensing.
For example, a new work might be licensed as
"AGPLv3+ | copyleft-next".
In this way a work could be combined with "open source"
works using the already approved license choice while promoting
(and ideally providing upgrade compatibility with future versions of)
copyleft-next.
Good idea; I've thought of this too. It's a rare case where I think
what would otherwise be a redundant disjunctive license makes a lot of
sense.
However I wonder if the disjunction opens up any "escape
hatches"?
Currently the only issue that comes to mind is the weakening of the
proprietary relicensing deflation provision. However, that would
only really come into play if a wannabe huckster had aggregated
copyright over the work... If a hacker publishes a work using the
aforementioned disjunction, but does not give any copyright assignment
or license, then it doesn't seem possible for a wannabe huckster to
proprietorize... Does it?
If copyleft-next is part of the disjunction, the disincentives to
proprietize remain present even if the other part of the disjunction
is GPLvn/AGPLvn. Proprietization is possible if the wannabe huckster
happens to have aggregated copyright permission allowing such
proprietization.
Regards,
--Tom
p.s. Has any thought been made towards an abbreviation
of the license name (e.g. CL, CLN)?
I have given a little thought to that.
An interesting point here is that "copyleft-next" has become the de
facto name of the license without that ever having really been the
intention -- "copyleft.next" was Bradley Kuhn's suggestion for a name
for the *project* after the FSF and a few others objected to the
earlier name "GPL.next" [I continue to regard those objections as
without merit, but abandonment of "GPL.next" is probably for the
best]). Luis Rodriguez later proposed "copyleft-next" instead of
"copyleft.next". Anyway, all that is fine; I kind of like
"copyleft-next" as a name, and I especially like the fact that the
word "license" isn't formally part of the name, which is (I think) a
novel feature.
I've thought of "CLN" as a decent three-letter initialism. If anyone
has any better suggestions, though, I would be interested in hearing
them.
Of course we'll know when copyleft-next has 'made it' when the SPDX
people come up with an official abbreviation. :-)
- RF