[copyleft-next] Impending release of copyleft-next 0.4.0

Richard Fontana fontana at sharpeleven.org
Sun Aug 24 17:03:53 UTC 2014


On Sun, 24 Aug 2014 07:09:27 -0400
Engel Nyst <engel.nyst at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 6:18 AM, Gervase Markham <gerv at mozilla.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > You need to rearrange 2 b); at the moment it's unclear what
> > licenses are OK because the definition is split into two bits. So:
> >
> > Distribution of Covered Code incorporating material governed by a
> > license listed in Appendix A (or an equivalently or comparably
> > permissive free software/open source license) does not impose
> > further restrictions. You have permission to ignore subsection 2c
> > (only) solely to the extent necessary to comply with such other
> > license.
> >
> >
> > But I do think the bit in brackets is not specific enough and will
> > cause problems.
> 
> What is the rationale for changing the approach to define free/open
> licenses?
> 
> There are two approaches (that yield precise enough results), as I
> believe has been mentioned on this list: an enumerated, closed list,
> and an appeal to authority entities.
> 
> In 0.3.0, copyleft-next was using the second. Now it's none of the
> two: it's an open-ended list (illustrative and non exhaustive), with
> free wording ("or an equivalently or comparably permissive free
> software/open license"). If I understand Gerv's concern correctly, I
> subscribe: this approach is not precise, and introduces a loophole -
> unless I'm missing something.

I see the point, but doesn't a similar issue exist under the GPL, with
few real problems in practice? The only difference being that the FSF
is playing two roles (that of license-drafter-in-the-past and
[aspirationally] present-day-authority [on what is or isn't a
GPL-compatible license, with the FSF never having purported to provide
an exhaustive list]).

Or is this actually a problem with the GPL that a new copyleft license
should fix?

Richard
 


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