Submission Type:
    Other/Miscellaneous licenses

The license itself:
    Scripting Free Software License, Version 1.3.7.2 (S-FSL v1.3.7.2)
    :: see for the attachement

Link to previous public discussions:
   http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=+728716

http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2013-November/000679.html
http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/2013-November/001358.html

    Submitting the latest version before the review process may start.

At least the following programs are currently at stake to be licensed under S-FSL:
    http://www.elstel.org/xchroot
    http://www.elstel.org/qemu: confinedrv
    http://www.elstel.org/bundsteg
http://www.elstel.org/coan/ (port to Modula-3 currently being discussed at the Modula3-devel mailing list) customer stock master data management framework for a small/mid size company (MySQL/PHP, project at Liscon)

The following improvements towards v1.3.6 have been incorporated into v1.3.7.2:

* compiling/ automatic derivation is handled sufficiently
* some minor updates


Motivation for a new license:
The license should satisfy some business needs while engaging a similar
contribution model as other open source licenses. i.e. re-licensing
is only granted to the original authors or current copyright holders.
see in detail for the previous approval mails.


Elmar Stellnberger





 Scripting Free Software License, Version 1.3.7.2 (S-FSL v1.3.7.2) as provided 
by elstel.org/license

1. This program may be used free of charge. It has been designed as research 
work and comes without claim for fitness to any particular usage purpose and 
completely without warranty or any kind of liability such as lost revenues, 
profits, harm or damage of any kind.

2. The program may be distributed by a third party given that the program is 
distributed in its original state completely without any kind of modifications 
or patches. If you need to re-distribute a patched of this program you need to 
distribute the patches separately from the original so that the pristine 
version can be restored at any time. Note that the distribution of a derivative 
plus reverse applicable patches will be deemed equivalent to the distribution 
of a pristine version plus forward applicable patches. No patches that could be 
shipped use to exist for automatic derivation processes like f.i. the 
compilation of sources. By applying automatic derivations you consent that you 
will provide all makefiles or any other additional input which is required for 
the derivation process to the original authors under the same licensing and 
same terms as patches. An OSS-tool to achieve these derivations must be 
available for free to the public. It needs to yield functionally equivalent 
results as the binaries you distribute and work with the input files you have 
shipped. We suggest you to ship binaries and sources in different packages.

3. Modifications applied to this program may not affect the name, original 
version, copyright, license or any reference given to the authors such as their 
email addresses or their web presence and/or page in any part of the program or 
any files attached to the program apart from updates to these references made 
by the respective authors themselves. You as a distributor need to let your 
contributors add their names, their email and modifications with date to the 
changelog. You may use the upstream changelog if present or your own one as 
long as it stays accessible upstreams. Any derived work must carry the name of 
the distributor, vendor or the product in its name (or a unique shorthand for 
it) directly preceded by the original unchanged final upstream name of the 
software and its version at the beginning. For automatic derivations a tag 
concerning the derivation process or its output like f.i. the machine 
architecture would be appropriate. You must not charge for the programs under 
S-FSL themselves but you may require a reasonable charge for the physical 
reproduction of the data.

4. You may only extend or modify this program given that you do also consent 
with the following terms. As far as you are not a public distributor you are 
obliged to send a copy of your patches to the original authors referred to 
herein as the authors of the first version of the program as being listed in 
the changelog or program header whenever you publish or exchange your patches 
with other people. If you have some work in progress you are obliged to send 
out bundled patches once at least every month. This is to assert the 
availability and recognition of patches at least by the original authors or 
branch maintainers; a condition which must be held even if you agree not to 
actively 'send' or 'forward' your patches. For bundled patches you do not need 
to ship intermediate patches or dead end patches provided that the final 
derived work can be restored by applying all distributed patches to the 
original in an order indicated by the patch providers. Something is considered 
a dead end patch if it leads to a broken program, the result is not usable and 
you do not plan to continue to work on it. The original authors will finally 
have to resolve whether to incorporate your patches or not into future 
versions. Any contributor has the right to be listed with full name, patching 
date and email address in the changelog of this program.

5. By distributing patches you do also consent that the original authors may 
incorporate your patches into future versions of this program. The patched 
parts of the program and the patches themselves will also become subject to 
this licensing and may even be used for free in other programs or in the same 
program under different licensing as soon as you choose to publish any kind of 
patch; i.e. you need to be ready to share your full intellectual property 
rights with the original authors whenever you choose to exchange, distribute or 
publish any kind of patch to this program. Sharing your intellectual property 
means that both parties - you and the original authors - obtain the full set of 
rights about your modifications which were initially only associated with you. 
The propagation of rights extends up to usage rights for patents used in 
derived works including the transferability of usage rights to child and parent 
branches; it does however not extend up to trademarks. Trademarks used in 
derived works may only be used by the original authors to describe the origin 
of newly incorporated features if they wish to do so.

6. If you want to develop a separate branch of this program the original 
authors need to consent as long as the software may be subject to further 
development by them; if not that should be indicated by them denominating 
either new copyright holders with the same right as the original authors or by 
publishing under a different license. If S-FSL 'with free branching' is 
explicitly specified in the license terms then you may choose to develop a 
different branch of this program any time you want given that your new branch 
serves a new purpose or is sufficiently different so that the original authors 
do choose not to re-integrate your branch at least for two patching periods. 
Separate branches have another base name and their own versioning scheme. A new 
branch will work under the same license and have the same rights as the 
original concerning the incorporation and management of patches giving the 
original issuers of the branch equivalent rights as the original authors for 
the scope of their branch. Branched versions do however need to forward and 
share patches including all associated property rights with their parent 
branch. Branched versions can not re-publish under a different license or use 
patches, patents or other intellectual property of the maintainers of the 
parent branch in a new context unless explicit consent from the maintainers of 
the parent branch is given. Hence the propagation of rights as described in the 
previous paragraph does automatically work in upstream direction only. The 
maintainers of the original product or any of its branches may any time 
transfer their rights to a new or extended group of people. The new copyright 
holders can thereupon act as the original authors or issuers of the branch 
called branch maintainers.

7. The term distribution describes shipping an aggregate of software, its 
documentation and adherent materials. Any distribution which wants to 
assimilate software under S-FSL needs to take the following minimal provisions: 
It must be possible to verify the download of a whole image as far as provided 
securely by a publicly available tool and a checksum which is exposed to the 
broad public. Additional keys may be provided in any kind of way. Security 
updates and updates against broken functionality must also be available to the 
public rather than just to a paying customer stock as long as they pertain to 
software that can either be downloaded or compiled from sources by the public 
and which pertain to the distribution. Note that updates do not include 
upgrades to future upstream versions of a program. Available to the public 
implies here available free of charge apart from connectivity to the internet 
or a reasonable charge for the reproduction of the data medium and does also 
pertain to the terms 'public distribution' and 'public distributor'. 

8. Public distributions have the advantage of not having to ship patches 
proactively to the original authors or copyright holders. This does not prevent 
the same software including its adherent materials to be additionally available 
at cost or privately somewhere else as long as public availability remains 
guaranteed at a reasonable level (f.i. download of the free parts of the 
distribution within some days.). A public distribution may any time also ship 
with adherent materials at cost such as documentation, support or additional 
software as long as it remains available to the public free of charge also 
without these adherent materials. However there must not be any undue hindrance 
in obtaining the distribution requiring special knowledge not known by users 
technically experienced in the field of the public software shipped with the 
distribution and the software it depends on.

9. Software under S-FSL that should either be used as or in a component, 
plug-in or add-on of 'non public' or so called 'additional' software or 
whenever software under S-FSL is required to run such 'non public' or 
'additional' software then S-FSL imposes the restriction that the additional or 
non public software must also either be made available under an OSS-compliant 
license and free of charge to the public or that you will need to pay for the 
software under S-FSL being incorporated. A license is to be deemed 
OSS-compliant if it has been accepted by opensource.org.

10. If any of the terms stated in this license were not in accordance with 
local law all other parts of this license should remain valid. If any of the 
terms about sharing patches should be deemed invalid modifying the software and 
sharing patches shall no more be granted from the time of the realization of 
the decision of the court on in the given country or region; already shared and 
incorporated patches are still subject to the given terms and conditions as far 
as deemed valid; the license needs to be re-issued then in order to allow 
further modifications and sharing of patches again.

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