Thank you for the clarification Matthew. You're right, I was assuming the copyright in the license applied to the software under it.
I have no interest in "owning" a license, just the software I write. I like the terms of the Apache license, as I understand them they basically say, "You can use and modify the source, just admit you are doing so and say thank you." I may be incorrect in my interpretation. Is it possible to create a "General Open Source License" that provides similar terms but the parties involved (Apache, OpenE, John Q. Public) are not "hard-coded" in the license? -David Matthew C.Weigel wrote: > > On Wednesday, February 27, 2002, at 12:46 p, David Blevins wrote: > > >>> (I dislike seeing copyrights on licenses anyway. It implies that > >>> someone modifying the license needs approval...which means that OpenE > >>> needs approval from Apache group....Did they get it? Does OpenE > >>> want to be bothered when someone wants to take the OpenE license > >>> and modify it?) > >> > >> This is a sticky wicket which we have not found a good answer to. On > >> the one hand, licenses that name a copyright holder are not reusable. > >> On the other hand, it seems hypocritical for an organization that > >> promotes software reuse to NOT promote license reuse. And as you > >> point out, the license does not give any permissions to create derived > >> works. > >> > >> The OSD is silent on this issue, so we have no grounds for refusing to > >> approve a copyrighted license. > >> > >> We're having a board meeting today, and I'll bring this issue up. > > > > The license does give permission to create derived works, provided > > those derivations are under the same license. This is clearly > > impossible if merging that work with another work under the same > > restriction, so I see your point. > > You are confusing the copyright of the license and the copyright of > the software. > > What was being discussed was how to handle a) licenses that are > specific to a single company, and b) licenses that forbid > derivative works (i.e., "I like this license but I need to make > this change for my needs..." - the resultant license may well be > OSD-compliant, but it might not be *usable*) > > > I have felt first hand the complications of working on open source > > software copyrighted to someone else, an thusly, not having the > > right to mix that code with even another Open Source approved > > license. One possible avenue would be amending the OSD to protect > > the rights to change the license (and copyright) on derived works > > to any other OSI approved license. > > You can not, except under special circumstances, transfer copyright > to someone else. > > If you could change the license of anything under an OSS license to > be under any other OSS license, everything would eventually be > under the BSD license. And there would be gobs and gobs and gobs > of software that was Free Software but not Open Source, because > people would not be *interested* in having whatever license they > created for their software replaced. Different licenses serve > different needs *of the licensor*, and the licensee's needs that > are considered 'important' or 'necessary' or 'good' are the ones > already in the OSD. > > > Even this raises the question, who has rights to relicense and > > sell a commercial version as is done with PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.? > > The copyright holder(s) and people to whom the copyright holder(s) > grant that right. > > It is a common thread that people see part of Free Software and > think, "this is all there is; this license describes Free > Software." It happens when people think that every concievable > right ought to go to the licensee and they think the BSD license is > all there is, and it happens when they see the GPL and think that > Free Software must be provisioned to always be Free Software to > qualify. > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- > license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 > -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
