Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

2017-06-21 Thread John Cowan 
On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 3:59 PM, Rick Moen  wrote:

The author in your hypothetical is not actually violating his/her own
> licence, because he/she already had statutory rights to the work's
> copyright-covered rights, and didn't need a licence to get them.
>

Indeed; I should have put "violate" in scare quotes.  This is no
hypothetical, though; it is the term rewriting language Pure <
https://agraef.github.io/pure-lang>, which I recommend to anyone interested
in dynamically typed languages that use pattern matching (and lack
constructor discipline a la Haskell).

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side
with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.  --Gerald Holton
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

2017-06-21 Thread Rick Moen 
Quoting John Cowan (co...@ccil.org):

> I know of a program which consists of a fairly large library which does
> most of the work, issued under a permissive license, and a small
> interactive main program which provides the command line.  This main
> program is provided in two versions.  One works with GNU readline and is
> GPLed; the other does not provide line editing and is under the same
> permissive license as the library.  The author can do this because he is
> free to violate his own license to create the readline-free version of the
> code, but users would not be.

Will you forgive a quibble, John?  I don't mean to distract from your
overall point, which is well-taken.

The author in your hypothetical is not actually violating his/her own
licence, because he/she already had statutory rights to the work's
copyright-covered rights, and didn't need a licence to get them.  I'm
mentioning this because some people seem to think licence conditions
flow up the licensor's arm and attach to his/her brain, when in fact
they're just a property he/she can attach to a specific codebase
instance, which explains how different instances can exist with
differing licence regimes.

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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

2017-06-21 Thread Joe Kiniry 
Thank you for including me in these discussions.  I'm now subscribed to
license-discuss.

In short, the reason we have made our software available in the fashion
that we have is exactly because of the fear factor surrounding GPL and,
secondarily, we do not want competitors to sell our software without
contributing back to the community.

We have yet to interact with a single elections official who understands
and is comfortable with GPL, let alone demands GPL.  The most common
licenses mentioned by EOs is BSD and Apache.  Zero election officials have
expressed an interest in the OSET public license to date.

As with all R&D we do at Free & Fair and Galois, we listen to our customers
and do what they ask.  Thus, we release most everything we do under BSD,
unless we are forced towards another OSI license due to build dependencies
etc.

Joe

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 11:58 AM, John Cowan  wrote:

>
> On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 2:44 PM, Lawrence Rosen 
> wrote:
>
> > So, I still don't understand what role "principle" plays in BSD and
> > GPL dual licensing?
>
> The principle in question should be a legal maxim but isn't.  "Damnunt
> quod non intelligunt", people fear what they do not understand.
>
> --
> John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
> Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion
> that optimum or inadequate performance in the trend of competitive
> activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity,
> but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be
> taken into account. --Ecclesiastes 9:11, Orwell/Brown version
>
>
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

2017-06-21 Thread John Cowan 
On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 2:44 PM, Lawrence Rosen  wrote:

> So, I still don't understand what role "principle" plays in BSD and
> GPL dual licensing?

The principle in question should be a legal maxim but isn't.  "Damnunt quod
non intelligunt", people fear what they do not understand.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion
that optimum or inadequate performance in the trend of competitive
activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity,
but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be
taken into account. --Ecclesiastes 9:11, Orwell/Brown version
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

2017-06-21 Thread Lawrence Rosen 
John Cowan wrote:

> (Nowadays this wouldn't be necessary, as there are drop-in replacements for 
> readline, but the principle is still the same.)

 

All copyrighted software can have "drop-in replacements" if someone wants to 
build them. Only patents may prevent that, but that's not the topic here. 

 

This drop-in alternative is valid even for the open source election software 
that Brent Turner is concerned about. If someone releases such software under a 
more restrictive license (such as the FreeAndFair or the OSET licenses), 
copyright law allows a BSD or GPL alternative to be dropped in (with 
engineering effort!) to replace it.

 

That's the value of all open source copyright licenses. 

 

So, I still don't understand what role "principle" plays in BSD and GPL dual 
licensing?

 

/Larry

 

 

From: John Cowan [mailto:co...@ccil.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 11:17 AM
To: Brent Turner 
Cc: Lawrence Rosen ; license-discuss@opensource.org; Alan 
Dechert ; Joe Kiniry 
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

 

 

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 9:12 AM, Brent Turner mailto:turnerbre...@gmail.com> > wrote:

 

John.  Can you explain why a group such as Oset or FFE would not want to simply 
use GPL ?

 

I don't know those organizations.  But if you issue software under the GPL, you 
reduce your market share by people who want to modify it and won't or can't 
accept the GPL terms, or who just want to use it and are irrationally afraid of 
or hostile to the GPL.  Likewise, if you issue software on BSD terms, you 
reduce your market share by people who are irrationally hostile to BSD 
software, or fear that if a proprietary fork is made it will somehow affect 
their BSD rights or cut them off from their only available source of 
improvements.  If you do both, you have some hope of retaining these people who 
would otherwise be lost.

 

I know of a program which consists of a fairly large library which does most of 
the work, issued under a permissive license, and a small interactive main 
program which provides the command line.  This main program is provided in two 
versions.  One works with GNU readline and is GPLed; the other does not provide 
line editing and is under the same permissive license as the library.  The 
author can do this because he is free to violate his own license to create the 
readline-free version of the code, but users would not be.

 

(Nowadays this wouldn't be necessary, as there are drop-in replacements for 
readline, but the principle is still the same.)

 

-- 

John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org 
<mailto:co...@ccil.org> 

Business before pleasure, if not too bloomering long before.

--Nicholas van Rijn

 

 

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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

2017-06-21 Thread John Cowan 
On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 2:21 PM, Brent Turner 
wrote:

I assume this is not relevant as I am only interested in public elections -
> which is where the corps I mentioned dwell--  and there would be no reason
> for government to be hostile to GPL .so under that reasoning again I can
> not figure out why they would be opting for license other than GPL
>

I can only speculate.  But looked at with a lawyerly eye that isn't used to
the wonderful world of free software licensing, the GPL looks *weird*.
Where's the consideration?  Where are the restrictive terms?  WHAT DO THEY
WANT?

Gummint lawyers can be just as fearful of what they don't understand as any
other lawyers.  Indeed, their clients probably have more to lose.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
In my last lifetime, I believed in reincarnation;
in this lifetime, I don't.  --Thiagi
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

2017-06-21 Thread John Cowan 
On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 9:12 AM, Brent Turner 
wrote:

John.  Can you explain why a group such as Oset or FFE would not want to
> simply use GPL ?


I don't know those organizations.  But if you issue software under the GPL,
you reduce your market share by people who want to modify it and won't or
can't accept the GPL terms, or who just want to use it and are irrationally
afraid of or hostile to the GPL.  Likewise, if you issue software on BSD
terms, you reduce your market share by people who are irrationally hostile
to BSD software, or fear that if a proprietary fork is made it will somehow
affect their BSD rights or cut them off from their only available source of
improvements.  If you do both, you have some hope of retaining these people
who would otherwise be lost.

I know of a program which consists of a fairly large library which does
most of the work, issued under a permissive license, and a small
interactive main program which provides the command line.  This main
program is provided in two versions.  One works with GNU readline and is
GPLed; the other does not provide line editing and is under the same
permissive license as the library.  The author can do this because he is
free to violate his own license to create the readline-free version of the
code, but users would not be.

(Nowadays this wouldn't be necessary, as there are drop-in replacements for
readline, but the principle is still the same.)

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Business before pleasure, if not too bloomering long before.
--Nicholas van Rijn
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

2017-06-21 Thread John Cowan 
On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 6:45 PM, Lawrence Rosen  wrote:

I am surprised by offers at GitHub and elsewhere of open source software to
> the public under "either the BSD or the GPL". Take the BSD! It is fully
> compatible with the GPL anyway. Always take the more generous offer of
> software!


I'm not sure if you meant this to go to the public license-discuss list.

Some people are ideologues who refuse to have anything to do with software
under one or another license.  Offering multiple licenses is a strategy
(misguided, in my opinion) to satisfy (some) such ideologues without
alienating others.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Sound change operates regularly to produce irregularities;
analogy operates irregularly to produce regularities.
--E.H. Sturtevant, ca. 1945, probably at Yale
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

2017-06-21 Thread Henrik Ingo 
I have seen github repositories with MIT or GPL dual licensing
(essentially same as what you say). The explanation was that they
wanted to use MIT (as is common in Node/JavaScript circles) but also
wanted to be GPL compatible, so had added that as an explicit option.
(The particular project then dropped the GPL license, after assurances
that MIT is considered to be GPL compatible.)

henrik

On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 1:45 AM, Lawrence Rosen  wrote:
> Thanks for your comments, Joe. Please let me know how OSI responds to your
> license questions.
>
>
>
> I'd like to make one other comment on dual licensing. I support that as a
> commercial business strategy. But the only practical dual licensing
> strategies for a licensor that makes sense to me are choices between the GPL
> or AGPL and a complex (and perhaps more profitable) commercial license. Your
> "FreeAndFair" choice between the GPL and the BSD – assuming it is a fair
> dual licensing choice and not, as in your license, a discriminatory
> provision between categories of users – presents an obvious choice for a
> licensee to make: The BSD is always a better license than the GPL.
>
>
>
> I am surprised by offers at GitHub and elsewhere of open source software to
> the public under "either the BSD or the GPL". Take the BSD! It is fully
> compatible with the GPL anyway. Always take the more generous offer of
> software!
>
>
>
> I'm also copying some friends at OSI, but I'm not copying your email.
>
>
>
> /Larry
>
>
>
> Lawrence Rosen
>
> Rosenlaw (www.rosenlaw.com)
>
> 3001 King Ranch Rd., Ukiah, CA 95482
>
> Cell: 707-478-8932
>
>
>
> From: Joe Kiniry [mailto:kin...@freeandfair.us]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 6, 2017 10:55 AM
> To: lro...@rosenlaw.com
> Cc: Brent Turner ; Alan Dechert 
> Subject: Re: FreeAndFair license
>
> 
>
>
>
>
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-- 
henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi
+358-40-5697354skype: henrik.ingoirc: hingo
www.openlife.cc

My LinkedIn profile: http://fi.linkedin.com/pub/henrik-ingo/3/232/8a7
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

2017-06-14 Thread Joe Kiniry 
Hi Larry,

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 12:41 PM, Lawrence Rosen 
wrote:

> Joe Kiniry wrote:
>
> > In short, the reason we have made our software available in the fashion
> that we have is exactly because of the fear factor surrounding GPL and,
> secondarily, we do not want competitors to sell our software without
> contributing back to the community.
>
>
>
> Hi Joe, welcome to this list. :-)
>

Thanks.

As a short preface to my involvement here, my brief bio relevant to this
topic is probably worthwhile.  I've been releasing software as open source
and running or contributing to open source projects since the late 1980s.
I have given public talks on OSS, software patents, and much more in my
many years of being an academic and an entrepreneur.  Thus, I have deep
knowledge of these topics.


> Let's talk license fear factors. One of them is the mistaken impression
> that any open source license can ever prevent competitors from selling your
> software. But if you also insist that they contribute back to the
> community, then don't be afraid of the GPL; that is the principle of that
> license regardless of the licensees' fear. That is one major reason for
> Brent Turner and others to recommend the GPL for election software.
>
>
I do not have this mistaken impression.  Certainly it is the case that many
of our customers have such a mistaken impression, as well as many others,
about OSS.  I'm not afraid of GPL: my customers are.

If all of the customers I care about say "Yay! GPL!" then we'll be using
GPL.  At the moment, we are very far from this situation.

By the way, nowadays I personally prefer *either* the Apache License
> (rather than the BSD) or the reciprocal MPL 2.0 (rather than the GPL). But
> it would be foolish for a licensor to offer both Apache and MPL as a *dual
> license*. Take the Apache License rather than the MPL if the foolish
> licensor offers that dual license choice. It is always better for a
> licensee.
>

I agree.  We don't do that.

All things being equal, I do wish that this were very simple and we could
provide our software under a single OSI-approved license.  But because of
the business landscape—particularly with regards to the naiveté of our
customers and the ethics of our competitors—we cannot do that quite yet.

Joe


>
>
> /Larry
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Joe Kiniry [mailto:kin...@freeandfair.us]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, June 14, 2017 12:13 PM
> *To:* John Cowan 
> *Cc:* Lawrence Rosen ; Brent Turner <
> turnerbre...@gmail.com>; license-discuss@opensource.org; Alan Dechert <
> dech...@gmail.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license
>
>
>
> Thank you for including me in these discussions.  I'm now subscribed to
> license-discuss.
>
>
>
> In short, the reason we have made our software available in the fashion
> that we have is exactly because of the fear factor surrounding GPL and,
> secondarily, we do not want competitors to sell our software without
> contributing back to the community.
>
>
>
> We have yet to interact with a single elections official who understands
> and is comfortable with GPL, let alone demands GPL.  The most common
> licenses mentioned by EOs is BSD and Apache.  Zero election officials have
> expressed an interest in the OSET public license to date.
>
>
>
> As with all R&D we do at Free & Fair and Galois, we listen to our
> customers and do what they ask.  Thus, we release most everything we do
> under BSD, unless we are forced towards another OSI license due to build
> dependencies etc.
>
>
>
> Joe
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 11:58 AM, John Cowan  wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 2:44 PM, Lawrence Rosen 
> wrote:
>
>
> > So, I still don't understand what role "principle" plays in BSD and
>
> > GPL dual licensing?
>
>
>
> The principle in question should be a legal maxim but isn't.  "Damnunt
> quod non intelligunt", people fear what they do not understand.
>
>
>
> --
>
> John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
>
> Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion
>
> that optimum or inadequate performance in the trend of competitive
>
> activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity,
>
> but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be
>
> taken into account. --Ecclesiastes 9:11, Orwell/Brown version
>
>
>
>
>
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> https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
>
>
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

2017-06-14 Thread Lawrence Rosen 
Joe Kiniry wrote:

> In short, the reason we have made our software available in the fashion that 
> we have is exactly because of the fear factor surrounding GPL and, 
> secondarily, we do not want competitors to sell our software without 
> contributing back to the community.

 

Hi Joe, welcome to this list. :-)

 

Let's talk license fear factors. One of them is the mistaken impression that 
any open source license can ever prevent competitors from selling your 
software. But if you also insist that they contribute back to the community, 
then don't be afraid of the GPL; that is the principle of that license 
regardless of the licensees' fear. That is one major reason for Brent Turner 
and others to recommend the GPL for election software.

 

By the way, nowadays I personally prefer either the Apache License (rather than 
the BSD) or the reciprocal MPL 2.0 (rather than the GPL). But it would be 
foolish for a licensor to offer both Apache and MPL as a dual license. Take the 
Apache License rather than the MPL if the foolish licensor offers that dual 
license choice. It is always better for a licensee.

 

/Larry

 

 

From: Joe Kiniry [mailto:kin...@freeandfair.us] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 12:13 PM
To: John Cowan 
Cc: Lawrence Rosen ; Brent Turner 
; license-discuss@opensource.org; Alan Dechert 

Subject: Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

 

Thank you for including me in these discussions.  I'm now subscribed to 
license-discuss.

 

In short, the reason we have made our software available in the fashion that we 
have is exactly because of the fear factor surrounding GPL and, secondarily, we 
do not want competitors to sell our software without contributing back to the 
community.

 

We have yet to interact with a single elections official who understands and is 
comfortable with GPL, let alone demands GPL.  The most common licenses 
mentioned by EOs is BSD and Apache.  Zero election officials have expressed an 
interest in the OSET public license to date.

 

As with all R&D we do at Free & Fair and Galois, we listen to our customers and 
do what they ask.  Thus, we release most everything we do under BSD, unless we 
are forced towards another OSI license due to build dependencies etc.

 

Joe

 

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 11:58 AM, John Cowan mailto:co...@ccil.org> > wrote:

 

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 2:44 PM, Lawrence Rosen mailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com> > wrote:


> So, I still don't understand what role "principle" plays in BSD and

> GPL dual licensing?

 

The principle in question should be a legal maxim but isn't.  "Damnunt quod non 
intelligunt", people fear what they do not understand.

 

-- 

John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org 
<mailto:co...@ccil.org> 

Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion

that optimum or inadequate performance in the trend of competitive

activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity,

but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be

taken into account. --Ecclesiastes 9:11, Orwell/Brown version

 

 

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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

2017-06-14 Thread Lawrence Rosen 
Thanks for your comments, Joe. Please let me know how OSI responds to your 
license questions.

 

I'd like to make one other comment on dual licensing. I support that as a 
commercial business strategy. But the only practical dual licensing strategies 
for a licensor that makes sense to me are choices between the GPL or AGPL and a 
complex (and perhaps more profitable) commercial license. Your "FreeAndFair" 
choice between the GPL and the BSD – assuming it is a fair dual licensing 
choice and not, as in your license, a discriminatory provision between 
categories of users – presents an obvious choice for a licensee to make: The 
BSD is always a better license than the GPL. 

 

I am surprised by offers at GitHub and elsewhere of open source software to the 
public under "either the BSD or the GPL". Take the BSD! It is fully compatible 
with the GPL anyway. Always take the more generous offer of software!

 

I'm also copying some friends at OSI, but I'm not copying your email.

 

/Larry

 

Lawrence Rosen

Rosenlaw (  www.rosenlaw.com) 

3001 King Ranch Rd., Ukiah, CA 95482

Cell: 707-478-8932 

 

From: Joe Kiniry [mailto:kin...@freeandfair.us] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 6, 2017 10:55 AM
To: lro...@rosenlaw.com
Cc: Brent Turner ; Alan Dechert 
Subject: Re: FreeAndFair license

 

 

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