[copyleft-next] copyleft-next 0.2.0 released

Gervase Markham gerv at mozilla.org
Thu Feb 21 09:59:16 UTC 2013


On 21/02/13 05:40, Richard Fontana wrote:
> I don't actually know. I confess that as far as I can recall I've
> never looked at that Convention. The most coherent argument I have
> heard from a lawyer on this point was something to the following
> effect: 'no one really knows what's in that Convention, or whether it
> applies to software, but whatever is in it might be bad' (paraphrasing
> heavily of course). I think the main reason we see this being excluded
> is because someone initially decided to do so and this started a
> process in which lawyers drafting licensing agreements all followed
> suit.

I have no idea what's in it either! :-)

>> Who decides? That sounds like a recipe for lawyer argument. Is it better
>> to refer to the OSI license list as of a certain date instead?
> 
> That was essentially what an earlier release did (IIRC). I'm really
> trying to define what 'proprietary licensing' is and I don't know a
> good way to do it. And the goal here isn't perfection, but rather to
> ward off practitioners of certain kinds of business models. I just
> want a way to signal "keep away" to a certain kind of potential
> licensor. The definition doesn't have to be perfect for that purpose.
> 
> That said, I'm not satisfied that this can't be made better, including
> perhaps in the way you've suggested.

I think that having a clearly defined list is much easier. Then it's
pretty obvious to all. In the current set up, I can imagine someone
wanting to take advantage of that clause thinking "Hmm, I don't think
their pseudo-open license meets the OSD, but they do. So what now?"
Pseudo-open is currently observed (if not common), and we should plan
for it possibly remaining so.

> This is just a clarification of what kinds of things absolutely are
> not 'Legal Notices'. It isn't meant to be exhaustive, but I did
> recently add 'Powered by statements' because that is such a common
> form in which I've seen the problematic condition. 

I wonder if we can think of a more generic phrase. Or we could go for
the slightly linguistically ugly '"Powered by"-style statements.' Or you
could try leaning on the legal definition of what makes a valid
copyright statement, and say you only have to preserve those.

>> Is it considered that there is no need for a system library exception?
>> Is that because the definition of Derived Work does not cover system
>> libraries?
> 
> Sort of. The old system library exception can be seen as built into
> the definition of 'Separate Work'. At least that was the intention. I
> am not at all of the view that this definition could not be made
> better.

Reversing the question, how can we make it clear that it's OK to ship
Windows binaries of copyleft-next code?

>> * "under any version of the GNU General Public License"
>>
>> I look forward to the rationale for this change; I would worry that this
>> would open the license up to the exploitation of flaws in e.g. GPLv1.
> 
> We might as well exclude GPLv1. I think leaving it open-ended on the
> other side (GPLv2+) seems to make sense, but I suppose one could
> question it. 

I think + is certainly right, and GPLv2+ (which you did have) is
probably right. Particularly if you don't have the "user product" stuff
from GPLv3.

>> * Has consideration been given to combining how section 2 works with how
>> section 8 works?
> 
> I haven't thought about that, beyond being aware of the inelegance
> that I introduced in referring in section 2 to the Apache License
> (which I did in a recent change because I thought it might make the
> provision easier to understand -- this was a response to the comments
> on Martin's article on LWN.net).

I think there's clarity and self-containedness in having a "waive these
sections" approach rather than a "use this totally different license"
approach, if for no other reason that you don't have the issue which is
addressed by the "if you change the license in this way, no additional
rights are granted" language you now see in some licenses.

Gerv


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