I was once using straight 3c-BSDL but one incident (I am not from an Anglophone country) proved to me that it's language is too complex in local courts. Now I am sort of forced into creating a functional equivalent using only simple English (definition: restrict word usage to the 3000 basic English word defined by Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary) so this is my first attempt.
Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 23, 2015, at 02:00, Ben Cotton <bcot...@fedoraproject.org> wrote: > >> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:32 AM, Maxthon Chan <xcvi...@me.com> 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 > License-discuss@opensource.org > http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
