On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 7:13 AM Eric Schultz <e...@wwahammy.com> wrote:
> From any understanding I've had of FOSS, I don't see how a preamble saying > the community's opinion is that an organization is unwelcome violates any > principle behind FOSS. The condemned organization is legally able to exercise > all the rights that one expects of FOSS-compliant software. [...] > While I didn't explain it well in my initial email, listing the name with the > reason they are excluded is the most aggressive of a set of different ideas. > Other options could be: > > * List the names of organizations who are unwelcome but don't explain why. > On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 3:04 PM Richard Fontana <rfont...@redhat.com> wrote: > > A license that has a preamble that singles out a particular > > individual, or organization, or even a specifically-described group, > > might have the effect of discouraging exercise of the > > nominally-granted license permissions by the singled-out > > person/entity/group. I mean, I think that is actually one of your > > goals, right? > I mean, that is the goal in this scenario. That said, I don't think that > means the license is in and of itself non-OSD compliant. Discouraging > use-cases that the copyright holder doesn't want is a pretty common reason > why copyleft licenses are chosen. That doesn't make the license or the > software non-OSD compliant; if the rights are protected, I don't see see why > discouraging those use-case more explicitly is out of line. So, suppose a PNG preamble says "Members of $marginalized_group are not welcome in our community" (I think from your initial message you recognize that your approach could be used in such a way). If I could demonstrate that an effect of that language was that members of $marginalized_group avoided the software altogether, isn't that almost as bad as an outright prohibition on use by those members? Richard > > On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 3:04 PM Richard Fontana <rfont...@redhat.com> wrote: > > They could, but would such licenses be OSI-approvable? I'd assume and > > hope not. I guess you're assuming that they would be, since there's no > > obvious objective principle to explain why (for lack of a better > > label) "progressive" persona-non-grata-preamble licenses are > > acceptable from an OSD-conformance perspective, but anti-progressive > > ones aren't -- similar to a concern I have about some of the ethical > > source licenses. > > I think in these cases, OSI would have to approve the template not the > specific license or have a standard on which ones can be submitted for > approval (used by enough software, meets some standard of quality, doesn't > explicilty violate the OSI code of conduct, etc.). Otherwise, you would have > nothing to do BUT review licenses. :) > > On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 1:26 PM Brian Behlendorf <br...@behlendorf.com> wrote: > > One more practical and probably negative impact: it will always be easier > > to add new names than to remove old ones, because adding new names is a > > simple sublicense that can be done by anyone, but removing a name will > > require a relicense with the consent of every contributor who contributed > > under that license. So, in my facial-recognition example, I would likely > > as for assignment of the right to relicense from any contributor, so that > > I might be able to remove a name once they've cleaned up their act. > > Otherwise a list that can only grow becomes an embarrassment and > > ineffective at actually changing behavior, it just becomes a howl in the > > night. But centralizing IP (rather than a mere right to redistribute a la > > DCO / CLA) is something I think we've done well to avoid. > > A few people mentioned this topic too. I had considered this but forgot to > mention it. One solution would be to have a versioning process controlled by > whoever the author designates. That would seem to imply that the license > would have to be modified though. That said, I don't think whether the list > of condemned entities is well maintained over time is relevant to > OSD-compliance. It does seem to be more of an issue of whether it's a wise > idea to use the license or whether someone should draft it. > > On Sat, Feb 22, 2020 at 3:50 PM John Cowan <co...@ccil.org> wrote: > > That is true, but not yet applicable. So far we have only seen a request > > to discuss the idea, and we have discussed it. No request to draft a > > license has been forthcoming. > > As John said, I'm not drafting a license, this is more of a thought > experiment. I was encouraged by folks in the community, some of whom are on > this list, to bring this idea here for discussion. > > > Thanks to all who provided constructive contributions, > > Eric > > On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 3:28 PM Seth David Schoen <sch...@loyalty.org> wrote: >> >> John Cowan writes: >> >> > In order for the attachment to propagate with the work, the license has to >> > specify that it can't be removed, though. So, for example, you can't >> > attach it effectively to the GPL, because the GPL only says the GPL must be >> > preserved, and any additional terms that restrict the user's powers (in >> > this case the power to remove the attachment) can be deleted by anyone. >> >> It's more like the "front-cover texts" and "back-cover texts" in the >> GFDL, I guess. >> >> "... with the Front-Cover Texts being 'yay Republicans boo Democrats' ..." >> / >> "... with the Front-Cover Texts being 'yay Democrats boo Republicans' ..." >> >> Or maybe like the charityware notes in, say, vim, except with a >> discouragement to work with a particular group rather than an >> encouragement? >> >> In the old days I think I remember how much people appreciated that FOSS >> was collaboratively developed by people who had enormous disagreements >> with each other in other ways. Sometimes it seemed like a point of >> pride or fascination -- "sir, I detest what you say (or do), but I run >> your code and you run my code", to misquote a misquotation of Voltaire. >> >> -- >> Seth David Schoen <sch...@loyalty.org> | Qué empresa fácil no pensar >> http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/ | en un tigre, reflexioné. >> 8F08B027A5DB06ECF993B4660FD4F0CD2B11D2F9 | -- Borges, "El Zahir" >> >> _______________________________________________ >> License-discuss mailing list >> License-discuss@lists.opensource.org >> http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org > > > > -- > Eric Schultz, Developer and FOSS Advocate > wwahammy.com > e...@wwahammy.com > @wwahammy > Pronouns: He/his/him > _______________________________________________ > License-discuss mailing list > License-discuss@lists.opensource.org > http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org -- Richard Fontana He / Him / His Senior Commercial Counsel Red Hat, Inc. _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@lists.opensource.org http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
