Mitchell Baker writes:
You acknowledge that this software is not designed or intended
for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of
any nuclear facility.
Would including this clause in a BSD-license be OK?
Sure. It just requires that you say something which is
Bob Scheifler writes:
So the word restrict in OSD#6 (and the word prevent in the rationale)
should be interpreted narrowly to mean completely preclude? Meaning,
there's no obligation for all fields of endeavor to be on equal footing;
it's (definitionally) acceptable for the license to
Marius Amado Alves writes:
(At the SDC we're drafting a new license. We're using the term fair
source for internal work. I don't know if that's the term that will be
exposed. Suggestions welcome. www.softdevelcoop.org)
I use Source Available to describe software where you can get the
Marius Amado Alves writes:
and because your questioning indicates convergence with the SDC
philosophy, which is really simple: it's open source, but if it's used
commercially, then the authors get a cut.
I'm sorry, Marius, I'm confused. How can be it open source, and yet
if used
Marius Amado Alves writes:
tout court to mean something different, but life has shown repeatedly
that the vast majority of speakers won't follow the suggestion.
Actually, it's a small minority of speakers who won't follow the
suggestion. Their life is made more complicated by their choice.
Chris F Clark writes:
Actually, as long as the license is OSI compatible--meaning
effectively that some recipient could give the software to the party
to which one does not wish to sell, is there any reason that a
developer could not sell open source software only to a select group
of
Ernest Prabhakar writes:
What *is* our policy on licenses that are just name changes?
Sigh. This is a problem. We can't let people willy-nilly make just
name changes to a license. What if they want to change the
controlling law, or jurisdiction? That's why we've pushed hard for
licenses
Evan Prodromou writes:
So, the Creative Commons licenses are not OSI-approved:
Only because nobody has submitted them.
In discussing this on the Creative Commons cc-licenses list, one
commenter thought that the Attribution license element* would not meet
the OSD.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Hi all,
I've released my C++ header-only library macstl under the Pixelglow Source
License, which is basically equivalent to a BSD license except for two things:
http://www.pixelglow.com/macstl/license/
1. It has the modified files attribution clause
Ernest Prabhakar writes:
Hmm. Once upon a time, I though that OSI policy was to require
'templates' for all approved licenses, and that any variations on that
template were automatically approved. Is that (or was that ever) a
formal policy?
Not 'require', but strongly recommend.
Guilherme C. Hazan writes:
Just read carefully their page:
http://www.gluecode.com/website/html/prod_licensing.htm
Sure, but why the OSI logo at the main page???
It isn't not anymore.
--
--My blog is at angry-economist.russnelson.com | You know you have a
Crynwr sells support
Larry Masters writes:
May have to put this back on the drawing board. Basically what we are
wanting to do with the license is control code created to work with
the licensed software, control meaning that any software created to work
with it must be released under the same license and
I'm the chair of the license approval committee. This is my report
for the current set of licenses under discussion. If anybody
disagrees with my assessment of the committee's conclusions, say so
promptly.
--
Restricts license termination to only if the original work is alleged
to infringe a
[ note the addition of the Adaptive Public License at the end. There
have STILL not been sufficient comments on the Adaptive Public
License. -russ ]
I'm the chair of the license approval committee. This is my report
for the current set of licenses under discussion. If anybody
disagrees with
Tony Linde writes:
The goal is that any of the software we develop can be shared amongst the
partner projects without limitations (save retaining copyright and
contribution notices) AND that any code can be taken, adapted and used by
any commercial concern without restriction (again save
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
I'm the chair of the license approval committee. This is my report
for the current set of licenses under discussion. If anybody
disagrees with my assessment of the committee's conclusions, say so
promptly.
The board voted on Thursday afternoon to accept the
Patranun Limudomporn writes:
and thank you for OSI approval too.
Your license has been sent to the board for consideration.
No action has yet been taken to approve your license, nor any other
license submitted since middle August of 2003.
--
--My blog is at angry-economist.russnelson.com |
Zooko O'Whielacronx writes:
So if I understand correctly, the Simple Permissive License and the
(ideally edited) Fair License both pass the litmus test of OSD. In
addition to approving licenses which meet the OSD, the OSI also
prefers to slow the proliferation of substantially similar
Carmen Leeming writes:
Title: Adaptive Public License
Submission:
http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:6913:200305:bogcdnbbhnfbgpdeahob
License: http://www.mamook.net/APL.html
This license was submitted in May 2003. I checked in June to make sure
that the license had
I'm the chair of the license approval committee. This is my report
for the current set of licenses under discussion. If anybody
disagrees with my assessment of the committee's conclusions, say so
promptly.
--
We've sat on this license submission for far too long. It's a clever
and innovative
BSD Protector writes:
With all due respect, this mailing list is called:
license-discuss.
1. GPL is a license.
2. It is being discussed.
3. It is not a license under consideration for approval by OSI.
Therefore ... it is off-topic for this mailing list.
--
--My blog is at
Alex Rousskov writes:
- If NASA wants to kindly ask users to register, license is
not the right place to do that. NASA should change the
license before OSI approves it (a simple quality control
issue)
On the other hand, if NASA wants to require redistributors to
Hi. Sorry about the autoresponses that have gone to list
contributors. Here's what happened:
1) Worm forges email from an autoresponder to the list subscription
address.
2) list manager sends confirmation.
3) autoresponder confirms.
I've unsubscribed the autoresponders.
--
--My blog is at
Ernie Prabhakar writes:
I have no idea if this is legally coherent, but I don't see anything
here that would create an OSD conflict, since other OSI licenses seem
to automatically require similar things, just without the separate
written license agreement escape clause.
Thanks,
Chip Salzenberg writes:
According to Brian Behlendorf:
... there are people out there who passionately cling to the notion
that if you get value for using a piece of software, you should be
paying the authors of that software ...
What if the authors are of a different opinion? Are
Sean Chittenden writes:
Why should the GPL be any different to you?
A patch under the GPL is the same as a patch released in an unusable
form. My bias and the OSSALs bias against the GPL stems from the
terms in the GPL that prevent me from using GPL'ed code in products.
Exactly my
This sounds like a question for the Free Software Business mailing
list, rather than the open source initiative license approval
committee. [EMAIL PROTECTED] is the submission address;
[EMAIL PROTECTED] is the subscription address.
-russ
James McGovern writes:
My employer has asked me to
Sean Chittenden writes:
Correct, but the BSD license does not ensure that all software
developed will be available under terms friendly for businesses, which
goes back to the point of me writing the OSSAL.
Neither does the OSSAL. Anybody can make changes to OSSAL-licensed
code and not
Mike Wattier writes:
The OSI is a political organization
yeah.. and IMHO this is the very reason that many who want to
support the Open Source community, will not do so. It is slowly
becoming a cheerleading section for the GPL.
Not really. The GPL is legally troubled. It attempts
Brian Behlendorf writes:
It's not flame bait. Show me an open source license that specifies that
each user pay the copyright holder for use.
You could have a license which specifies that each user have to pay
the copyright holder when they get the software from the copyright
holder. It
Sean Chittenden writes:
Because I believe that if I provide, as an example, a programming
language and someone writes a module for that language, the least that
the module author can do is release the module under business friendly
terms. If someone writes a module for my lang but
Sean Chittenden writes:
What I'm trying to understand is why you say that incorporating BSD
code in a proprietary product is a good thing and simulataneously
say that incorporating BSD code in a GPL product is a bad thing.
Changes made to the BSD code by the authors of the
Sean Chittenden writes:
Because I want widget makers to be able to take OSSAL code, and use it
in proprietary products.
But that's what the FSF is doing! Why don't you want them to do it?
The OSSAL lets widget makers who use the same set of modules,
ensure that any work on the modules
This license has been sitting around for over a month, and nobody has
said anything. Maybe it's because it's obviously open source, but as
committee members, I'd like to hear it explicitly from your mouths (or
keyboards rather) to report back to the board.
It's actually a fairly interesting
Sean Chittenden writes:
The GPL interferes with the creation of proprietary software.
Correct, which is what I object to and why I created the OSSAL.
Businesses using OSSAL software would give the business the ability to
create proprietary software, even though the non-core parts are
Ernie Prabhakar writes:
It sounds to me like Sean really wants to avoid the emergence of a
alternative, viable Open Source fork of his project under the GPL. That
is, he is less concerned about what happens to the code per se, and
more concerned about the -community- being split by
Sean Chittenden writes:
Let me clarify some vocabulary:
people = home user or developer of applications out side of a
commercial entity working on a not for sale piece of
software.
businesses = commercial developers interested explicitly in the
purpose of
Clay Graham writes:
this list needs a filter for this type of stuff.
The list HAS a filter for this type of stuff. Why do you think this
is the first one that's hit the list in a couple of years?
--
--My blog is at angry-economist.russnelson.com | Free markets express in the
Crynwr sells
Is it just summertime, and people are outside enjoying themselves?
Otherwise, I have to wonder why there have been no comments on
http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:6923:200306:adcbobdimckahfihhlcg
or
http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:6976:200306:odefmgncbfagijaemlbg
Are these
I've submitted three licenses to the board for approval. ENRL,
Entessa, and Lucent Public License 1.0. Of them, Entessa and LPL are
recommended for approval. Thanks for your help with these!
--
--My blog is at angry-economist.russnelson.com | Rebecca's incredibly neat
Crynwr sells support
Chuck Swiger writes:
Given the following two choices:
A: software sits on the shelf, unseen, for X years, then is released
under, say, the BSD license (if anyone still remembers);
...or...
B: software is released to the public with certain restrictions (such as
resale for
Lawrence E. Rosen writes:
OK, guys, play with me one more round. This time, let's do it in the
form of a law school exam question and let's get the lawyers and IANALs
on this list to chime in:
Nahhh. None of this is necessary. There's nothing in the AFL that
says that you must use the
Eben Moglen writes:
No, that's not quite right. We do have to resolve one question, which
is whether the effect of the AFL is to pass through the patent-
retaliation provision on code which is relicensed.
Larry's taught me not to paraphrase, so let's look at the actual
language:
Greg Pomerantz writes:
Lawrence E. Rosen writes:
OK, guys, play with me one more round. This time, let's do it in the
form of a law school exam question and let's get the lawyers and IANALs
on this list to chime in:
Nahhh. None of this is necessary. There's nothing in
Lawrence E. Rosen writes:
Sorry to have to knock that leg of the chair out from under you,
Foo. And I was on such a roll!
That's why the term compatibility has been such a sore point for me.
The point of the law school exam being for anyone to be able to show a
difference in people's
[ please discuss this license. I assume that the submittor means to
withdraw the previous version. -russ ]
The originally posted No Warranty License isn't being lookup upon
favorably on the discuss list so here is an updated version to
discuss. It is a BSD license with two extra sentences
[ Please discuss this license. Is this discriminating against users
in countries where warranty can be disclaimed? -russ ]
This license is a standard BSD license without the advertising clause
but with a clause (immediately before the warranty and liability
disclaimer) which only gives you
Lawrence E. Rosen writes:
I think [Article 1] really means:
The license must permit all licensees to make copies of
the software without payment of additional royalties to
the licensor. The license cannot restrict licensees
from either selling or giving away those
John Cowan writes:
With respect, Russ, that's bassackwards. Collectively if not individually,
the members of the list have far more free man-hours than you do. You
should pass submissions straight on to the list and let one or more of
us shoot them down if they are obvious losers.
Okay,
Bruce Dodson writes:
What should one expect as a reasonable time period between the sumission of
a license-approval request, and some acknowledgement that the request has
been made?
I'm a volunteer, Bruce, with a TODO list longer than your arm. The
problem with license submittals is that I
I have a problem that I would like y'all to consider. A company sells
datasets. They wish to cooperate with the opensource folks to the
extent that opensource folks can use a free copy of their dataset.
They would also like to be able to sell that same dataset to people
using proprietary
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Hello All,
Please excuse me if I've overlooked this but I can't seem to find any sort of
FAQ or reference that gives an overview of the various licenses. Does anyone
know of a good resource that compares and contrasts the major open source
licenses in
John Cowan writes:
to insist (by legal, not technical, means) that your page on the WWW is
only to be read by people with Mozilla (etc.) browsers, and not IE browsers.
How do you manage to enforce such a thing?
Aha! Bing! That's how you do it! You publish the data in a special
open
John Cowan writes:
Russell Nelson scripsit:
Aha! Bing! That's how you do it! You publish the data in a special
open source format, which is unusable by Windows applications. Sure,
somebody in the open source world might create a format converter, but
why would they bother
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
1. Use Restrictions. It is not Sybase's intent (by use of a clickwrap
format or otherwise) to restrict the use of the software for any purpose.
Right. That's a different but related issue.
1) if there's no contract, there cannot possibly be any restrictions.
2)
I wonder if you are deemed to have accepted a click-wrap license
if software requiring a click-wrap appears on your machine? Have you
agreed to every license which was clicked past on your machine? What
if an employee with no authority to bind the company to a contract
clicked? What if someone
Robert Samuel White writes:
as Russ and some his cronies.
I don't have cronies. I have minions.
--
-russ nelson http://russnelson.com |
Crynwr sells support for free software | PGPok | businesses persuade
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | governments coerce
Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. writes:
Some of your hypotheticals are interesting, but I think you are missing the
point. We are discussing licenses that are presumably issued by licensors.
In that respect, it is in the interest of the licensor to follow the steps
that might ensure that his or her
John Cowan writes:
Russell Nelson scripsit:
At the end of the day, Larry, the community doesn't want to use
software for which it has to contract to use.
Amen.
I was reflecting on the Open Software License, and I realized that it is
not only viral, it is super-viral
John Cowan writes:
Russell Nelson scripsit:
How about this legal theory instead
of click-wrap: you got the software for free. If you continue to use
it, it is because you agree with the terms under which the software is
offered. If ever you disagree, you have simply to delete
Giacomo A. Catenazzi writes:
Russell Nelson wrote:
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.
Anybody have
Lawrence E. Rosen writes:
the courts are clear about the importance of such notices for
contract formation.
What attributes of a license make a contract necessary? I know that
you need a contract to disclaim warranties, but I'm not sure that it's
necessary to disclaim a warranty on a gift.
Lawrence E. Rosen writes:
Do you really mean:
A license may not restrict use or modification by the possessor of a
lawfully obtained copy of a work.
That's what I mean. How can you use or modify something unless you
possess it? Remote control??
But I'm not sure that this particular
Lawrence E. Rosen writes:
I have proposed a click-wrap notice that would allow ONE single notice
for all the programs in a distribution. I believe that one notice is
legally sufficient and indeed necessary to obtain affirmative assent to
the licenses for the individual works comprising
John Cowan writes:
Russell Nelson scripsit:
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.
What about verbatim
Dr. David Alan Gilbert writes:
* Bruce Perens ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
My only concern is how this would interact with Larry's new license.
Well I was thinking about GPL on libraries since that restricts what you
are allowed to link the library against; (No I'm not trying to get into
Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. writes:
Despite the expressed sentiment of some OSI members, I doubt that any lawyer
would advise support of this change to the OSD, if it pertains to the
clickwrap issue.
I didn't write it to address the clickwrap issue, although I can see
that it does affect it. I
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.
Anybody have problems with this? Does this have any problems?
--
-russ nelson
Ralph Mellor writes:
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...
Yes, Brian Behlendorf's server was not healthy earlier today. I'm
sure that he's working on fixing it.
Oh, and I only CC'ed Bruce Perens because he
Bruce Dodson writes:
You misunderstood me, Larry. I was not saying that YOU were trying to
discourage RSW from pursuing approval. On the contrary I was surmising,
without putting words in your mouth, that you'd agree that this would be
unconscionable.
As for Russ and others, I
Robert Samuel White writes:
I can understand your point of view, I just wonder if you can see mine?
Of course. Do you understand that I see your point of view, and that
I'm trying to help you achieve your goal?
I am an artist. I develop software, and that's what I love doing. I
also
[ Please discuss this license. -russ ]
Open Source Initiative. September 23, 2002
Dears Sirs,
We are submitting the OCLC Office of Research Public License 2.0 as a
candidate for OSI Certification. Feel free to post the license to the
license-discuss list.
Brian Behlendorf writes:
On Wed, 14 Aug 2002, Russell Nelson wrote:
I like mine (well duh!) because it explicitly says that all is fair in
love, war, and software use and modification except for a few things.
That's also its weakness because the list needs to be right; no more
Lawrence E. Rosen writes:
Several people, including Bruce Perens, Russ Nelson, myself, and most
recently David Johnson, have suggested wording for such an OSD
provision. None of those versions has caused the others on this list to
stand up and cheer.
Particularly Bruce's, which he never
Rick Moen writes:
Quoting Russell Nelson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
Oh, it's *always* had to be changed. Anybody could insert
restrictions on use into a license and ask us to approve it. Since
the OSD says nothing about a license not being allowed to have
restrictions on use, we
Carol A. Kunze writes:
Berstein says - In the United States, once you own a copy of a
program, you can back it up, compile it, run it, and even modify it
as necessary, without permission from the copyright holder. See 17
USC 117.
You have to OWN the copy. When I say that in a
David Johnson writes:
On Tuesday 13 August 2002 08:52 pm, Russell Nelson wrote:
Oh, it's *always* had to be changed. Anybody could insert
restrictions on use into a license and ask us to approve it. Since
the OSD says nothing about a license not being allowed to have
[ Catching up on mail from ten days ago ]
Carol A. Kunze writes:
Here is the theoretical difference between proprietary and traditional (GPL,
BSD) free software. With the former the user agrees to a license and does
not get title to the copy of the program. Without agreeing to the
Brian Behlendorf writes:
On Fri, 2 Aug 2002, Russell Nelson wrote:
From what various legal scholars
tell me, a non-contractual license (such as the GPL) cannot cause you
to give up your warranty rights.
Is there a reference of some sort for this? It's about the only solid
David Johnson writes:
Click-thru threatens to overturn this fundamental tenet. Regardless of what
other effects it may have, it will severly damage the philosophical core of
Open Source.
I share your fear, and brought it to the board at the last meeting.
Allowing contractural licenses
Lawrence E. Rosen writes:
The MPL (and almost all similar licenses), for example, contains a
patent grant that specifically applies to use and practice and it
disclaims application of those patents to the combination of the
Original Code with other software or devices.
But that, by
John Cowan writes:
Russell Nelson scripsit:
If you could put restrictions on modification, then BitKeeper is open
source.
The GPL puts modest restrictions on modification, at least of interactive
programs.
Indeed. One has to wonder whether the GPL should be an approved
Michael St . Hippolyte writes:
On 2002.08.01 23:18 Russell Nelson wrote:
At the July OSI board meeting last week, we approved the Academic Free
License (think MIT/BSD/X11/Apache with a patent grant) and we sent
four licenses back for reconsideration.
As someone who has submitted
Brian Behlendorf writes:
I see a practical issue - if I install Debian from CD and fire up Mozilla,
I don't want to have to go through ten dozen different dialog boxes with
I don't like it any more than you do. You're being asked to agree to
give up the right to any warranty. From what
M. Drew Streib writes:
Use licenses scare me.
They scare me too. That's why I think we need to change the OSD.
--
-russ nelson http://russnelson.com | New Internet Acronym:
Crynwr sells support for free software | PGPok |
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice |
Lawrence E. Rosen writes:
Then how about a provision of the OSD that reads something like the
following:
An open source license cannot restrict any fair
use rights that would be available for a copyrighted
work in the absence of a license.
That certainly would prevent
[ Thanks, folks. Approval discussion of the SHPTRANS License Template
is now closed. ]
Bruce Dodson writes:
I made a revision to the SHPTRANS License Template.
http://gisdeveloper.tripod.com/shptrans_license_template.html
The changes are highlighted in the HTML.
By suggesting that
Bruce Dodson writes:
I thought this process was one in which the license is submitted for
discussion, minor revisions are made if needed, and the license is
eventually accepted or rejected.
How can one resolve problems if one is not allowed to change the license?
I don't know? WHAT
At the July OSI board meeting last week, we approved the Academic Free
License (think MIT/BSD/X11/Apache with a patent grant) and we sent
four licenses back for reconsideration. Here's the hitch: we were
asked to approve a license which includes a requirement for
click-wrap.
The submittor had
[ Please discuss this license. This version is different from earlier
versions seen here. I have appended the license text to Bruce's
email. Please note that the license must stand on its own, since GPL
compatibility is an option, not a requirement. -russ ]
Bruce Dodson writes:
I've been
John Cowan writes:
Russell Nelson scripsit:
Here's what I call free software:
If you can get the source code, AND
If you can make any changes you want to the source, AND
Not even the MIT or new-BSD licenses allow that: some parts of
the source have to remain invariant
Rodrigo Barbosa writes:
Also, as you can see (if you take the time to read the infos on the site),
not all Open Source licenses are free software licenses.
All software which is OSI Certified Open Source (that is, licensed
under an approved license) is free software.
--
-russ nelson
John Cowan writes:
The above program is not free software: see
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ArtisticLicense .
You are presuming two things:
1) that a lack of acceptance is the same thing as rejection, and
2) that RMS defines free software. The term was in wide use
Karsten M. Self writes:
These are Klez mailings. Might help to filter the list on these.
Filter strings have been posted at Slashdot.
Even better: no text/html postings, no multipart/alternative postings.
--
-russ nelson http://russnelson.com | Okay, enough is enough!
Crynwr
Rick Moen writes:
Submitters should ideally do their own text-janitorial work.
We specifically ask them for HTML, because it's easier to remove
markup than create it from scratch.
--
-russ nelson http://russnelson.com | Economic ignoramuses find
Crynwr sells support for free
Emiliano writes:
I don't think it'd be a good approach (legally or morally), but isn't
the licensee bound by the text of the license, and nothing else?
Again, I must stress that this is not based on experience, but instead
on learning. From what I have read, what really matters is your
Richard Stallman writes:
The reason we've decided that this ASP requirement is legitimate is
that it is a matter of requiring making the modified source code
available in a case of public use. It extends existing GPL
requirements coherently to a new scenario of usage.
We've never
Richard Stallman writes:
A simple example: it is totally trivial on Windows to build a 'service'
from a DLL, exposing its entire interface. This would be running as a
separate executable, but would look like a regular library to any
windows program.
The FSF's position
Emiliano writes:
I am totally uneducated in the matters of license legalities, but is it
actually illegal to circumvent a license? If the wording of the license
allows a particular use, will the court read the letter of the license
or the spirit of the license?
In my admittedly limited
Emiliano writes:
I see the issues this brings, but my immediate choices are
1) keep the source closed, or
2) release the sources under conditions that give the users of the
service that my software will provide the same freedoms as the entity
running that software for them has.
You
1 - 100 of 195 matches
Mail list logo
