Here's an update of what's been going on with the copyleft-next draft during the past week:
While Bradley Kuhn's attempted resurrection of the anti-lockdown provisions has failed, I incorporated some of his suggestions for improvements in the definition of Corresponding Source (including a recent change that addresses the 'know-how' issue).
I have put a "FIXME" for the System Libraries definition, as, to be frank, all definitions of this exception in all versions of the GNU GPL are suboptimal and if we wish to preserve this concept at all we need to start over. (Query whether it's actually needed anyway.)
I deleted the 'rule of construction' in response to some criticism from Luis Villa, but I might restore it in response to some of his further comments on said deletion.
I deleted the "inbound=outbound" provision adapted from the Apache License 2.0. I think this is difficult to draft *well* and may not be worth the effort. In many cases, contributions to a hypothetical copyleft-next project will be themselves 'Derived Works', and I have argued publicly in various talks and writings that FLOSS legal culture features the inbound=outbound custom anyway.
The patent license grant is arguably broadened from GPLv3 by referring to 'Covered Works', although perhaps this is best seen as a clarification. In this I was influenced by the patent license grant in the Microsoft Public License.
I considered and discussed on the mailing list a provision that would attempt to achieve compatibility with EPL. I ended up not including this, though I am still open to the idea.
The anti-anti-circumvention waiver/disclaimer is clarified as something that the initial licensor and all 'Distributors' make. At least with the deletion of the first part of what was GPLv3 section 3, it was not clear that the initial licensor was making the same waiver/disclaimer as downstream parties.
I applied Luis Villa's proposal to delete the written offer option from the object code distribution section. No one came to its defense on the mailing list. It is gone!
In the past few days I've been experimenting, probably too much, with rearranging sections and subsections and typographical presentation and such.
I deleted the anti-patent-litigation condition descended from the end of GPLv3 section 10 and replaced it with a provision closely modeled on the patent peace provision in MPL 2.0 (and put it in the termination section). I did so despite having some concerns about the breadth of the MPL provision.
The old liberty-or-death provision is now reduced to one sentence in the no-further-restrictions section.
I removed the ancient clarification that you can charge for distribution or services, as hopefully obvious by now.
Apart from the draft, I made some modifications to the Harvey Birdman Rule (as it is again known).
copyleft-next (ignoring ws-supp) continues to shrink: it is now at 270 lines and 1620 words. Of course, that's with the placeholder System Libraries definition.For comparison, the Apache License 2.0 is 202 lines and 1581 words.
The Object Code Distribution section makes up about one quarter of copyleft-next
- Richard
Richard Fontana wrote on 9 August:
The old liberty-or-death provision is now reduced to one sentence in the no-further-restrictions section.
After 20 minutes of review, I'm not completely comfortable with this change yet, and I haven't fully formulated my thoughts as to why. My general sense is that Further Restrictions were active and the liberty-or-death clause was designed around passive situations.
Note that the penalty for violating the liberty-or-death clause was softer than violation. As it stands, the way I read it now, it's possible for a company to sign an NDA related to copyleft-next'd software, which immediately causes a violation and if they don't cancel that NDA in 30 days, then their rights terminate per §10.1.
So, in some sense, you've made the liberty-or-death clause more strict.
OTOH, you've made it less strict, because you're clause seems to indict you need direct "Foo vs. 'Not Foo'" contradictions between third-party agreements/judgments and copyleft-next. My feeling is the wording in GPLv3 that says:
If you cannot convey a covered work so as to so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence ...
it seems to me that is much more explicit.
I don't have a patch to propose as of yet on this. One thought is to say: "It is considered a Further Restriction if you Distribute a Covered Work such that you cannot simultaneously satisfy your obligations under this license and any other pertinent obligation".
I'm not 100% sure that's necessary, but it might be.
On 10/12/2012 09:54 AM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
Note that the penalty for violating the liberty-or-death clause was softer than violation.
You mean, in the sense that it makes clear that you only lose the right of distribution?
As it stands, the way I read it now, it's possible for a company to sign an NDA related to copyleft-next'd software, which immediately causes a violation and if they don't cancel that NDA in 30 days, then their rights terminate per §10.1.
How would an NDA trigger liberty-or-death? (I'm not saying it never could, but I'm having trouble understanding your example because it's not obvious how a garden-variety NDA would do so.)
So, in some sense, you've made the liberty-or-death clause more strict.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think so. RMS has said that he added liberty-or-death to GPLv2 to clarify what he felt was already implicity in GPLv1. Indeed, GPLv2 says "This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this License."
Liberty-or-death seems to indicate that you can't distribute if that act of distribution would involve you imposing further restrictions on the GPL rights of your distributees. I believe the clarification RMS was making was that the restriction you impose could be the result of some external obligation placed on you.
OTOH, you've made it less strict, because you're clause seems to indict you need direct "Foo vs. 'Not Foo'" contradictions between third-party agreements/judgments and copyleft-next. My feeling is the wording in GPLv3 that says:
If you cannot convey a covered work so as to so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence ...
it seems to me that is much more explicit.
To be convinced there is a problem here I would need to understand your objection better.
- RF
On 10/12/2012 09:54 AM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
Richard Fontana wrote on 9 August:
The old liberty-or-death provision is now reduced to one sentence in the no-further-restrictions section.
After 20 minutes of review, I'm not completely comfortable with this change yet, and I haven't fully formulated my thoughts as to why. My general sense is that Further Restrictions were active and the liberty-or-death clause was designed around passive situations.
Note that the penalty for violating the liberty-or-death clause was softer than violation. As it stands, the way I read it now, it's possible for a company to sign an NDA related to copyleft-next'd software, which immediately causes a violation and if they don't cancel that NDA in 30 days, then their rights terminate per §10.1.
So, in some sense, you've made the liberty-or-death clause more strict.
OTOH, you've made it less strict, because you're clause seems to indict you need direct "Foo vs. 'Not Foo'" contradictions between third-party agreements/judgments and copyleft-next. My feeling is the wording in GPLv3 that says:
If you cannot convey a covered work so as to so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence ...
it seems to me that is much more explicit.
I don't have a patch to propose as of yet on this. One thought is to say: "It is considered a Further Restriction if you Distribute a Covered Work such that you cannot simultaneously satisfy your obligations under this license and any other pertinent obligation"
What would help is for you to give an example that you think works correctly (in your view) under GPLv2/GPLv3 liberty-or-death but doesn't work correctly under the corresponding clause of copyleft-next. To the extent that I understand your point, I can't think of such an example.
- RF
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Bradley M. Kuhn -
Richard Fontana