Temporary Propietary License

Theodore Ts'o tytso at mit.edu
Thu Jul 19 14:21:58 UTC 2012


On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 09:52:52AM -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 12:07 AM, Ted Ts'o <tytso at mit.edu> wrote:
> 
> > I'm curious what people think of this idea; is it workable?  Are there
> > some fundamental flaws with this approach?
> 
> I think it comes down to a question of ideological purity. Those who
> see copyleft as a moral issue will, I expect, find this completely
> incompatible. If copyleft-next intends to follow this track, then I
> don't think it's a good candidate for a supplement.

Well, for some, moving the anti-Tivoization[1] clauses to an optional
supplement is also a compromise of ideological purity.  Please note I
was suggesting this as another option, which unlike the removal of the
anti-Tivoization clauses would *not* be the default.

[1] Yes, I know this is not a politically correct way of referring to
these clauses.  It's the one that most people understand, and I
haven't seen a good replacement yet.

> For what it's worth, my personal view leans more toward the
> compromising. I'd like to think that the ability to delay the release
> of source by a "reasonable" length of time might draw people to a
> copyleft license who might otherwise use a proprietary license. It's
> also possible that the only people who would use such a mechanism
> would have gone with a straight copyleft license otherwise, but I see
> this as a good way for copyleft to make inroads.

Yes, that was one of my original reasons for thinking about the TPL.
It's especially helpful if significant investment is needed to add
some particular feature, and given that the MySQL AB-style "commerical
license" business model has been somewhat discredited, this might be
attractive as another option for companies to experiment with.  (And
given that the enhancements would eventually be released under a GPL
or other copyleft license, it comes at much less to the community.)

	 	     	      	   	- Ted


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