Re: Open Source Business Found Parasitic, and the ADCL
what license should one use (or can a license be created) that creates a symbiotic relationship between commercial and free software. An interesting question. (To begin to narrow down the answers, I'll start by noting it's obviously not one that is parasitic.) Now, I must admit there are a few success stories of commercial Open Source products. But I would argue these are far and few between, and the overhead of accomplishing such a success is cost prohibitive for most smaller entities. Welcome to the free market: adapt or die. I'm not trying to be awkward; I'm emphasizing that you need to think in terms of evolution. a services and support business does not scale well, whereas the sale (rather licensing to be precise) of soft goods has proven to be a very effective business model. If you're selling software with characteristics that mean you don't/won't have serious OSS competition, then keep right on selling it. If OSS is encroaching, then you'd better adapt faster than both OSS and your proprietary competition, and that may mean you have to accept a model that generates one hundredth the revenue. So we have two diametrically opposed forces- the free world and the paid license world. It's interesting that when the not-free world tries to move in the direction of the free world, there is little or no budge from the free world to accomodate this. Personally I think the forces aren't diametrically opposed, they are pretty much unrelated. Kinda like democracy and capitalism. To the degree they are related, the key is for a democratic constitution to establish limits to abridgement of freedoms by capitalist forces. But if you wish to see it them as diametrically opposed, then perhaps the analogy is democracy versus communism. Should democracies alter their constitutions in order to trade more freely with communist states? I don't think so. It's really just a case of welcome to the free world: adapt or die. I obviously cannot speak for all commercial entities, but from my own perspective, one major point is being overlooked here. Generally speaking, there are very small portions of a product that contain truly proprietary algorithms and/or intellectual property. Thus, there is generally a significant portion of a product that a company may be willing to open source (without a Capital O and Capital S). Mozilla/Netscape. Darwin/OSX. etc. So what we're really looking for is a license called Partially Open Source or Commercial Open Source that will allow a company to protect small portions of a larger product. MPL etc. the OSD. But if there is zero interest here in a Partial Open Source license, then I believe that ultimately the commercial world will form a consortium to address this concept. It really seems you completely miss the point of the OSI! To quote their home page Open Source Initiative exists to make [the open source] case to the commercial world. You may feel it is/has failed, but the interest level is not only non-zero, it's actually 100%, as it's the entire point of OSI's existence. -- Ralph Mellor -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Open Source Business Found Parasitic, and the ADCL
It really seems you completely miss the point of the OSI! I don't think I'm missing the point- ... some clauses most commercial entities would like to see in a license that are specifically excluded by the OSD. So as a means of finding some common ground Again, you *are* missing the point. The OSI and OSD were developed specifically to be the common ground of which you speak. In the beginning, there was the FSF, and commercial people said, RMS is ornery and not particularly commercial world friendly. So someone, like you, said, why don't we come up with compromises that go as far as one can reasonably go, without losing the key developers and users rights that matter. Lets find some common ground. And let's give it a name and an organization to back this initiative up. Thus the OSI and OSD were born. I recommend you go read the stuff on the web site pages. ps: we've looked at MPL and all of the other recommended licenses. I'm sure we'll look again. But I'm also sure they each have problems for most commercial organizations. Perhaps. But the MPL was specifically designed to be the very compromise of which you speak. It consumed tons of legal and community time. There was serious pressure from some large corporations to protect their IP rights and ability to sell software that mixed proprietary and free code. Yes, each license has its problems. By far the biggest problem for any new license is that it is a new license. You are better off picking one of the existing licenses and then going through that license finding problems, then searching the archives for discussion of those issues, and only then, when you still don't know about something, posting a question here, about one issue at a time. -- ralph -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Plan 9 license
It turns out that this license is still *NOT* OSD compliant, ie. it is not what those running the OSI would label Open Source. Could you please specify wherein the Plan 9 license fails of Open Sourceness in its current incarnation? The complaints of RMS at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/plan-nine.html seem to apply with equal force to the Perl license (which he calls unFree) and the OSL 1.0, with the exception of the termination-on-any-IP-lawsuit provision. For now I'll limit myself to comparing the summary of problems that you wrote August 20 2000 [1], with the current license [2,3]. There may of course be other issues not covered in your summary, though it was in my judgment a good summary of the situation as the license was at that time. 1) Lucent reserves the right to demand source code for your private undistributed modifications; The current (as at Nov 03 2002) license says: Modifications which You create ... must be made available under the terms of this Agreement in at least the same form as the Source Code version of Original Software furnished hereunder. They don't explicitly exclude private changes. But I doubt they really care, so I think this could be fixed easily. You agree to provide the Original Contributor, at its request, with a copy of the complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifications created or contributed to by You if distributed in any form They don't define distribute or any variant of the word. But again, although with less certainty, I suspect they would not mind about private distribution (within a single entity) and could fix the wording. 2) commercial redistribution can only be for a reasonable price, an undefined term that might lead to trouble later; Distribution ... may ... include a reasonable charge for the cost of any media. You may also, at Your option, charge for any other software, product or service that includes or incorporates the Original Software as a part thereof. I believe the last sentence was added after your summary. Afaict, it mostly fixes the problem. 3) the license conditions are reimposed on your distributees, which suggests that you must have an explicit contract with them (I think RMS is overdoing it here); I'm not sure what this is about so I won't try to review this. 4) the retaliation clause causes you to lose all rights if you sue Lucent on any IP matter whatever, even if it has nothing to do with Plan 9; The licenses and rights granted under this Agreement shall terminate automatically if ... (ii) You initiate or participate in any intellectual property action against Original Contributor. So, this problem remains. Note that, from http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-2000-09/lw-09-expo00-licensing.h tml http://tinyurl.com/2euh [Eric] Raymond favors a Chinese finger trap provision for future licenses: under its terms, if you initiate patent legal action against the copyright holder, you lose your license rights. Ironic, huh? (Although what he actually said or meant may have been less extreme than the above seems to imply.) 5) the license imposes the U.S. export regulations on you if you export the software, even if they would not otherwise apply as a matter of law. You acknowledge that the Licensed Software hereunder is unrestricted encryption source code as the term is defined under the United States Export Administration Regulations and is subject to export control under such laws and regulations. You agree that, if you export or re-export the Licensed Software ... You are responsible for compliance with the United States Export Administration Regulations... I can't tell if this wording creates the problem you describe. The Lucida fonts bundled with Plan 9 are definitely not free, but nothing compels you to use or redistribute them (they cannot be modified or redistributed except as part of Plan 9). 2.2 No right is granted to Licensee to create derivative works of or to redistribute (other than with the Original Software or a derivative thereof) the screen imprinter fonts... Looks Ok to me. = Footnotes: [1] Your summary of issues with Plan 9 license is at: http://tinyurl.com/1ch9 or http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:2173:aankcpfkdbioplpjjacb [2] The current license is supposed to be stored at http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/license.html I include a copy of the version I read from for this email in footnote 3. The md5sum checksum for the version I am using for this email is f8be6752dae66936309f85b457c9f487 This version includes the text Version 1.4 - 09/10/02 at the bottom. However, two posts to comp.os.plan9 suggest that this is misleading: http://tinyurl.com/2etj or http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=enlr=ie=UTF-8oe=UTF-8selm=39e5c4a ebead98720077a2dd482865c3%40plan9.bell-labs.com and http://tinyurl.com/2eth or
Plan 9 license
As of Nov 1, 2002, the Plan 9 license at URL http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/license.html is labelled Version 1.4 - 09/10/02 and titled PLAN 9 OPEN SOURCE LICENSE AGREEMENT It turns out that this license is still *NOT* OSD compliant, ie. it is not what those running the OSI would label Open Source. I have asked members of the Plan 9 community to switch to use of a term other than Open Source until such time as their license is OSD compliant, but they are not responsive. Hence this email, for the record. -- ralph mellor -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: a proposed change to the OSD
I'm going to propose a change the Open Source Definition at our board meeting next Thursday. It is simply this: 0) A license may not restrict use or modification of a lawfully obtained copy of a work. Does OSI certify open documentation licenses? If so, I recall there being optional clauses that limit the number of printed copies, or something like that. == ralph PS. I haven't been able to thru to http://www.opensource.org for an hour or so. Packets seem to be stuck in San Jose... Tracing route to opensource.org [209.133.83.21] over a maximum of 30 hops: 153 ms46 ms47 ms gw-081-248.dsl.speakeasy.net [66.93.248.1] 233 ms36 ms34 ms border5.ge3-2.speakeasy-28.chg.pnap.net [64.94.35.212] 335 ms38 ms37 ms core2.fe0-1-bbnet2.chg.pnap.net [64.94.32.66] 435 ms32 ms35 ms 500.Serial2-1.GW1.CHI13.ALTER.NET [157.130.108.85] 534 ms35 ms34 ms 0.so-1-0-0.XL2.CHI13.ALTER.NET [152.63.69.182] 636 ms38 ms35 ms 0.so-2-2-0.XL2.CHI2.ALTER.NET [152.63.70.106] 735 ms37 ms38 ms POS7-0.BR4.CHI2.ALTER.NET [152.63.68.177] 858 ms57 ms57 ms 125.atm12-0.pr1.ord2.us.mfnx.net [208.184.231.49] 960 ms58 ms58 ms so-2-2-0.cr1.ord2.us.mfnx.net [208.185.0.189] 1058 ms58 ms59 ms pos5-0.mpr1.dfw2.us.mfnx.net [208.184.233.149] 1187 ms86 ms90 ms pos13-0.cr7.sjc2.us.mfnx.net [208.184.232.82] 1287 ms89 ms90 ms so-6-2-0.mpr3.sjc2.us.mfnx.net [64.125.30.6] 1389 ms88 ms87 ms pos2-0.mpr2.sjc1.us.mfnx.net [208.184.102.205] 14 *** Request timed out. 15 *** Request timed out. etc. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
OSI approval of Plan 9 license
As per my recent post to comp.os.plan9, a copy of which is at the end of this email, I'm thinking of asking for the current Plan 9 license to be approved by OSI. Given that I'm just a member of the public, and not the owner of the license, can I do that? If I can, are all relevant parties happy for me to do so? -- ralph PS. If you wish to use my email address, delete the XXX from the start. = Subject: Plan 9 teeters on the edge of freeness but... Date: 2002-09-09 03:00:03 PST ...falls howling into the abyss of doom... [1] (A rather colorful way of saying that the Plan 9 license, as it stood when the statement was made, should not be considered open source. [2]) Afaict, there was a clear good faith effort at one point to respond to RMS' points and to have the Plan 9 license OKed by the OSI. [3] It seems the license got close. [4] But, for some reason, there was no closure on the process; and at some later date someone at Lucent apparently decided to take the position that Lucent would not subject their licenses to certification by 3rd parties, and this presumably stalled the attempt to modify to meet the needs of the open source community and have it certified by OSI. [5] Is this about right as an assessment? Is there really some fundamental issue that means Plan 9 is destined to never become genuinely open source? Could *I* try to see if I can get the license certified? -- ralph [1] At least, a poster stated as much a couple years ago in: http://tinyurl.com/1chc It looks like the license was subsequently changed in a way that I suspect would have satisfied the quoted poster. But the teeters on the edge quote still seems apropos for the reasons stated in the rest of this email. [2] By open source, I mean as defined by the OSI (http://www.opensource.org/), the body trusted by many hackers to identify what is and is not open source. [3] Rob Pike has submitted the plan9 license... (cut/paste next two lines together): http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi? 3:mss:1988:27:aankcpfkdbioplpjjacb [4] Two lists of issues I found from the FSF and opensource.org web sites were, respectively: RMS' summary of Plan 9 license issues as of Oct 5 2000: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/plan-nine.html John Cowan's summary of Plan 9 license issues as of Aug 20 2000: EITHER full URL (cut/paste next two lines together): http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi? 3:mss:2173:aankcpfkdbioplpjjacb OR short alternate URL: http://tinyurl.com/1ch9 I note several license modifications that appear to be attempts to address many of the key points raised. [5] Apparently there was a Lucent policy decision not to pursue license approvals: http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:5 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: OSI approval of Plan 9 license
Given that I'm just a member of the public, and not the owner of the license, can I do that? If I can, are all relevant parties happy for me to do so? I don't see why you can't. OK. [1] But of course if OSI rejects it, there's nothing you can do to make Lucent change That's fine. OSI rejections are a very useful service to the community, just as useful as approvals. which means OSI will probably not treat this as a high-priority item Perhaps. But if so, I think they should reconsider. The current situation is that the Plan 9 license happily proclaims itself Open Source in its title. I realize that the OSI formulated the Certified trademark as the primary response to that sort of situation, but I think there is a powerful secondary strategy, namely to force selected licenses that attempt this dilution of the precise meaning of the term open source through the approval process. It's not so important to do so if a license is an out-and-out lie -- the community will soon get the picture if a license that claims to be open source is nothing of the sort. But the Plan 9 case is different. It radically dilutes the power of the term open source precisely because it is borderline. If nothing else, I am unhappy that I have had to spend hours trying to determine if the Plan 9 license is going to work for me. I look to the OSI to help reduce this overhead of investigating individual licenses. especially if (as I suspect) they are going to reject it as written. Afaict, in all cases where an issue was raised as being unequivocally a problem with the Plan 9 license, the license language was changed in a way that seems to be a good faith and potentially acceptable way to address the issue raised. (With the exception of removing use of the term open source. But that arguably is because the intent was that the license was in fact open source.) I have not seen discussion of the new language. That's also part of my point; it appears that the process stalled right when the license was plausibly ready to be accepted, which is at least odd. OSI's business is to certify OS licenses and to evolve non-compliant licenses toward compliance, not to put black flags on unchangeable non-OSI licenses. That's part of their business. And that business was begun in the case of the Plan 9 license, but not taken through to completion. Also, I think it's OSI's responsibility to create clarity about what open source means and that means that rejections are at least as important as approvals. -- ralph [1] I just realized that there is no copyright on the Plan 9 license, rendering the owner the public, which means the language in the approval process about being the license owner is moot. Ok, got that out the way. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
