[copyleft-next] Compatibility with Eclipse Public License.

Richard Fontana fontana at sharpeleven.org
Thu Aug 9 01:49:49 UTC 2012


On 08/08/2012 09:15 PM, Luis Villa wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 6:04 PM, Richard Fontana <fontana at sharpeleven.org> wrote:
>> On 08/08/2012 06:59 PM, Mike Linksvayer wrote:
>>> I'm surprised you're interested in adding linecount and
>>> incomprehensibility to achieve a low-certainty and small effect. Sort
>>> of like I said on identi.ca, I don't see the point unless somehow this
>>> would politically lead to an EPL 2.0 which would join the
>>> GPL-compatible universe.
>>
>> I'm convinced. Deleted!
> 
> Can I push back? 

Yes. I am deleting the provision for now but it will be an issue in
the Currently-Nonexistent Issue Tracker.

> If you're looking to have copyleft-next actually used
> (not 100% clear this is a goal :) 

It is certainly a goal.

> then eliminating some of the rough
> edges through allowing simple inclusion of already-quite-open code in
> this manner is a good tactic, with zero downside to user freedom that
> I can see, and only a small cost to license complexity. That said, you
> could frame it differently; basically, define the criteria you'd like
> to see in an inbound license and allow its inclusion.

It's that last part that I'm not sure about. You may not have meant
this but I took that to mean 'adopt a GPLv3-style approach', by which
I mean try to define general categories of acceptable license
provisions that might otherwise cause a license to be treated as
GPL-incompatible.

I've already decided this is a bad approach (because under A/GPLv3 it
has led to some unanticipated areas of uncertainty as well as
occasional misuse, and otherwise it hasn't really been necessary), but
I don't even know how one could begin to define a set of abstract
categories that would add up to the Eclipse Public License 1.0. I
think the only way to do it is to say "EPL code is compatible" (maybe
the way I initially tried but more comprehensibly), or to use the
magical relicensing trick. The magical relicensing trick seems
unacceptable essentially because it becomes an escape hatch from a
strong copyleft license (a design goal).

What I found at least temporarily convincing in Mike's comments was,
first, his saying that what I wrote is incomprehensible (another
design goal is maximal comprehensibility), and second, his hint that
this may be bad policy.

 - RF



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