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.
_______________________________________________
License-discuss mailing list
License-discuss@opensource.org
http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss