[copyleft-next] compatibility language [was Re: Update 2012-08-15]

Luis Villa luis at tieguy.org
Thu Aug 16 15:52:40 UTC 2012


On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 8:38 PM, Richard Fontana
<fontana at sharpeleven.org> wrote:
> On 08/15/2012 09:31 PM, Luis Villa wrote:
>>> I have mostly deleted an earlier idea of listing representative
>>> permissive licenses as inbound-compatible to guide interpretation of
>>> what "Further Restrictions" means. Instead, I assume that figuring out
>>> inbound license compatibility will be no more difficult than it was
>>> under GPLv2. The one exception is that I explicitly provide for
>>> Apache License 2.0 compatibility, because this is both useful and
>>> necessary.
>>
>> I am tempted to say that, once this language is refined, it should be
>> split off and turned into a general-purpose additional permission
>> exception for GPL *2*.
>
> I want Apache License 2.0 code to be compatible with copyleft-next
> works without need to invoke the separate permission to 'relicense'
> under a version of the (A)GPL. (I'm not sure if that's what you were
> getting at.)

Ah, I had not looked at the latest draft before opening my mouth.

I am less optimistic than you about whether or not building an
interpretive tradition works, but perhaps (assuming it ever got that
far) copyleft.next could be published with explicit analysis and
interpretation of various clauses that have previously been treated as
Further Restrictions, and use that to establish the ground rules.

> The idea here is that a common sense-based license
> compatibility tradition can grow up organically around copyleft-next
> much as it did under GPLv2; but the one interesting non-legacy license
> which causes problems is the Apache License 2.0, chiefly because of
> its section 9. The natural result (without this clause in
> copyleft-next) ought to be that section 9 is a 'Further Restriction'.
> What I don't want is some general categorical clause of the sort GPLv3
> section 7 has authorizing Apache-style upstream indemnification
> clauses.

FWIW, to be historically accurate, this would be "NPL 1.0-style
indemnification clauses." It's still in MPL 2.0, if I correctly
understand the part you find objectionable.

Luis


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