On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:32 AM, Maxthon Chan <[email protected]> wrote: > I have used a license like this for my open projects for a very long time. > Does this look like a real open source license? <snip> > Is this a rephrase of the 3-clause BSD license? It looks like a rephrase of the BSD 3-Clause, but there are some concerns I have about it (I am not a lawyer, so my concerns may be incomplete and/or irrelevant)...
>> * You distribute this software in its executable form with the >> copyright >> notice above, this license and the disclaimer below intact and >> display >> them in appropriate ways; >> * You distribute this software in its source code form with the >> copyright >> notice above, this license and the disclaimer below intact and the >> end >> result of such source code displays them in appropriate ways; These two clauses, pedantically interpreted, would require anyone who uses the software to distribute it. Basically you'd want "If you distribute...then you must include..." The BSD 3-Clause begins both clauses with the word "Redistributions" in order to make it clear. In addition, I'm not sure what is meant in the second clause by "the end result of such source code". Does that mean any compiled/interpreted code must display the license? What if it's a program that generally produces no output (think `cp`, `mv`, etc.)? The BSD 3-Clause requires the notice in the documentation, etc., but not in the "end result of the source code". I would argue that it violates item 10 of the Open Source Definition, but that's a debatable point. In any case, it seems impractical. >> * The name of the author and contributors are not used without previous >> explicit written permission by the author and contributors. >> This also seems impractical, as it would disallow attribution. This license doesn't require attribution, so it's not a direct conflict, but it would prevent a common courtesy (at least without administrative overhead for both the original and downstream developers). The BSD 3-Clause forbids the use of the author's name to "endorse or promote products derived from [the] software", but not attribution. This wouldn't technically violate any part of the OSD as far as I can tell, but it's unwieldy. >> THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED TO YOU ON AN "AS-IS" BASIS. NO WARRANTY WHATSOEVER >> COMES WITH THIS SOFTWARE, IMPLICIT OR NOT, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE >> LAWS. >> THE AUTHORS, CONTRIBUTORS AND COPYRIGHT HOLDERS SHALL NOT BE HELD RELIABLE TO >> ANY DAMAGE OR LOSS OCCURRED FROM USING OF THIS SOFTWARE. > "THE LAWS"? What laws? It's not clear from your post if you've written this license or if you got it from somewhere else, but if it's yours I wonder what the motivation for this is as opposed to just using the BSD 3-Clause, which seems to have the same intention but with more practical wording. Thanks, BC -- Ben Cotton _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
