On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 11:50:26AM -0500, Tom Callaway wrote:
On 02/27/2017 10:58 AM, David Labsky wrote:
> Hello Fedora Legal,
>
> Would software under the following license be okay for inclusion in Fedora? Should
I pursue the author to relicence?
>
>> DO WHATEVER PUBLIC LICENSE*
>> TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
>>
>> 0. You can do whatever you want to with the work.
>> 1. You cannot stop anybody from doing whatever they want to with the work.
>> 2. You cannot revoke anybody elses DO WHATEVER PUBLIC LICENSE in the work.
>>
>> This program is free software. It comes without any warranty, to
>> the extent permitted by applicable law. You can redistribute it
>> and/or modify it under the terms of the DO WHATEVER PUBLIC LICENSE
Clause 2 seems like it conflicts with clauses 0 and 1. Sublicensing
should fall under "whatever you want".
Additionally, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that I'm not sure that
"do whatever you want to do" has an established legal definition. That
said, we do permit the WTFPL, which has a similarly poorly worded
clause, but it does not have the conflict I point out above.
Richard, setting aside the concept of "please stop writing your own
ultra permissive licenses", what do you think?
I see this as a badly drafted attempt to have a simple copyleft
license that no one except the original copyright holder can enforce
(which might mean it isn't really copyleft I guess).
Nevertheless from a Fedora perspective I think it should be considered
a free software, GPL-incompatible license.
Richard