Re: [License-discuss] Looking for a license agreement.
On 10/06/2011 12:50 PM, Rudy Lippan wrote: There will also be a community aspect where individuals will develop and contribute components, just like every other open source project However, some of the contributed components may not be eligible for copyright protections. A component might be a simple configuration file, a pure data set, or even a full description of a server farm with data processing and management software. So what I would like to do is tie the license of the software to the user of the software respecting the licenses of the community-distributed components they use, whether or not the individual component is eligible for copyright protection. Just my two cents here, but I believe that it will be simpler (and safer) if you assume that all contributions to your project are copyrightable, and thus, needing to be under a compatible license. (Yes, I'm sure someone will feel the urge to be pedantic and point out that there are multiple assumptions in the above sentence, but please do not.) If the contributions are not copyrightable, then the license applied to those contributions is possibly irrelevant, and the widest possible range of rights for it apply. However, if a contribution is assumed to be non-copyrightable and no license is applied, and that turns out to be false (or false for some jurisdictions), not having the license will be extremely problematic. I also think that you should handle contribution licensing requirements separately from the copyright license of your work. I have seen too many poorly worded software copyright licenses where the intent was noble, but the implementation ended up in something that was non-Free or non-Open Source. In Fedora, we require contributors to agree to the Fedora Project Contributor Agreement (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:FPCA), to ensure that contributions (of both code and content) accepted to Fedora are guaranteed to come with acceptable licensing terms, either via explicit licensing statement from the copyright holder or explicit agreement to the default license terms as stated in the FPCA. A similar model may work for your project, and the FPCA is available under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported (with section 4d waived), although if you do decide to generate a derived work, I strongly encourage you to have a lawyer sign off on it first, because Legalese != English. Hope that helps, ~tom P.S. I Am Not A Lawyer, this is not to be considered legal advice. == Fedora Project ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Greetings, Earthlings! Need quotes for article
On 12/19/2011 10:42 AM, Jeremy C. Reed wrote: 69 is way too few. In my little research of just around 600 man pages I found over 100 different licenses -- mostly due to slight wording changes. Fedora is tracking 300+ different FOSS licenses. ~tom == Fedora Project ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] BSD, MIT [was Re: Draft of new OSI licenses landing page; please review.]
On 04/05/2012 11:35 AM, John Cowan wrote: So put Apache before MIT/BSD, but don't drop them altogether. Perhaps we should simply alphabetize these licenses? I'm not sure we'll ever reach consensus on ordering by importance or value or usefulness. ~tom == Fedora Project ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Does this look like an open source license?
On 01/26/2015 08:42 AM, Maxthon Chan wrote: The incident is that one project owner found his code used in an commercial product without attribution but the Chinese-speaking court says that the license is not enforceable if it is written in a language that the judge cannot understand, and that particular judge have only beginner level English. This lead me to create two thing: a 3c-BSD equivalent in simple English, and a 3c-BSD equivalent in Chinese (under law of Mainland China). While I completely understand your motivation here, the key point is that licenses are not written in English (much less simple English), but rather, in Legalese, which uses a Law Dictionary instead of a standard English dictionary. It is tricky (though, not impossible) to write a simple license that parses reasonably the same in English and Legalese, though, I'm not at all convinced that it is possible to do so with the limited simple English subset. Rather than even trying that, I would suggest that it would be better to have a proper legal translation done of the 3c-BSD into Chinese, than to have a weak simple English version for the rest of the world to struggle with. ~tom == Red Hat attachment: tcallawa.vcf___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Possible alternative was: Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL) Version 0.4.1
Can't speak for Debian, but Fedora will happily take software licensed as you describe. On Mar 16, 2017 3:09 PM, "Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US)" < cem.f.karan@mail.mil> wrote: > I agree that the Government can release it as open source, but as I > understand it, not as Open Source. The difference is whether or not the > code will be accepted into various journals (Journal of Open Source > Software is one). It also affects whether or not various distributions > will accept the work (would Debian? I honestly don't know). > > And I'm not after plain vanilla CC0 code to be called Open Source, I'm > after the method I outlined earlier. This side-steps the need to have CC0 > put forth by the license steward (I hope!). I know that is splitting > hairs, but at this point I'm tearing my hair out over this, and would like > to put it to rest before I have to buy a wig. > > Thanks, > Cem Karan > > > -Original Message- > > From: License-discuss [mailto:license-discuss-boun...@opensource.org] > On Behalf Of Tzeng, Nigel H. > > Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2017 2:48 PM > > To: license-discuss@opensource.org > > Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Possible alternative > was: Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL > > OSL) Version 0.4.1 > > > > All active links contained in this email were disabled. Please verify > the identity of the sender, and confirm the authenticity of all links > > contained within the message prior to copying and pasting the address to > a Web browser. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Cem, > > > > The USG does not need OSI’s approval to release code as open source > under CC0. It has done so already on code.gov. This includes the > > OPM, NASA, GSA, DOT, DOL, DOC and others. CC0 is compliant with the > Federal Source Code Policy for open source release. > > > > It is unlikely that you can push CC0 through license review as you > aren’t the license steward. It is up to CC to resubmit CC0 for approval. > > > > Regards, > > > > Nigel > > > > On 3/16/17, 8:56 AM, "License-discuss on behalf of Karan, Cem F CIV > USARMY RDECOM ARL (US)" > boun...@opensource.org on behalf of cem.f.karan@mail.mil> wrote: > > > > All, I want to keep this alive as I haven't seen a conclusion yet. > Earlier I > > asked if OSI would accept the US Government (USG) putting its > non-copyrighted > > works out under CC0 as Open Source **provided** that the USG accepts > and > > redistributes copyrighted contributions under an OSI-approved > license. Is > > this acceptable to OSI? Should I move this discussion to the > license-review > > list? > > > > To recap: > > > > 1) This would only cover USG works that do not have copyright. > Works that > > have copyright would be eligible to use copyright-based licenses, > and to be > > OSI-approved as Open Source would need to use an OSI-approved > license. > > > > 2) The USG work/project would select an OSI-approved license that it > accepted > > contributions under. The USG would redistribute the contributions > under that > > license, but the portions of the work that are not under copyright > would be > > redistributed under CC0. That means that for some projects (ones > that have no > > copyrighted material at all initially), the only license that the > works would > > have would be CC0. > > > > I can't speak to patents or other IP rights that the USG has, I can > only > > comment on what the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) has done > > (Caution-https://github.com/USArmyResearchLab/ARL-Open- > Source-Guidance-and-Instructions), > > which includes a step to affirmatively waive any patent rights that > ARL might > > have in the project before distributing it. I am hoping that other > agencies > > will do something similar, but have no power or authority to say > that they > > will. > > > > Given all this, is it time to move this to license-review, or > otherwise get a > > vote? I'd like this solved ASAP. > > > > Thanks, > > Cem Karan > > > > > > ___ > > License-discuss mailing list > > License-discuss@opensource.org > > Caution-https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license- > discuss > > ___ > License-discuss mailing list > License-discuss@opensource.org > https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss > > ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Possible alternative was: Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL) Version 0.4.1
I'd think the only ones who get to apply the "Open Source" label to licenses would be the OSI. Fedora's opinion is that CC-0 meets the OSD. On Mar 16, 2017 4:31 PM, "Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US)" < cem.f.karan@mail.mil> wrote: > Cool! Would Fedora/Red Hat consider it to be Open Source? > > Thanks, > Cem Karan > > > -Original Message- > > From: License-discuss [mailto:license-discuss-boun...@opensource.org] > On Behalf Of Tom Callaway > > Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2017 3:31 PM > > To: license-discuss@opensource.org > > Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Possible alternative > was: Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL > > OSL) Version 0.4.1 > > > > All active links contained in this email were disabled. Please verify > the identity of the sender, and confirm the authenticity of all links > > contained within the message prior to copying and pasting the address to > a Web browser. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Can't speak for Debian, but Fedora will happily take software licensed > as you describe. > > > > On Mar 16, 2017 3:09 PM, "Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US)" < > cem.f.karan@mail.mil < Caution- > > mailto:cem.f.karan@mail.mil > > wrote: > > > > > > I agree that the Government can release it as open source, but as > I understand it, not as Open Source. The difference is whether > > or not the code will be accepted into various journals (Journal of Open > Source Software is one). It also affects whether or not various > > distributions will accept the work (would Debian? I honestly don't > know). > > > > And I'm not after plain vanilla CC0 code to be called Open Source, > I'm after the method I outlined earlier. This side-steps the need > > to have CC0 put forth by the license steward (I hope!). I know that is > splitting hairs, but at this point I'm tearing my hair out over this, and > > would like to put it to rest before I have to buy a wig. > > > > Thanks, > > Cem Karan > > > > > -Original Message- > > > From: License-discuss [Caution-mailto:license- > discuss-boun...@opensource.org < Caution-mailto:license-discuss- > > boun...@opensource.org > ] On Behalf Of Tzeng, Nigel H. > > > Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2017 2:48 PM > > > To: license-discuss@opensource.org < Caution-mailto:license- > disc...@opensource.org > > > > Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Possible > alternative was: Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source > > License (ARL > > > OSL) Version 0.4.1 > > > > > > All active links contained in this email were disabled. Please > verify the identity of the sender, and confirm the authenticity of all > > links > > > contained within the message prior to copying and pasting the > address to a Web browser. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Cem, > > > > > > The USG does not need OSI’s approval to release code as open > source under CC0. It has done so already on code.gov < Caution- > > http://code.gov > . This includes the > > > OPM, NASA, GSA, DOT, DOL, DOC and others. CC0 is compliant with > the Federal Source Code Policy for open source release. > > > > > > It is unlikely that you can push CC0 through license review as > you aren’t the license steward. It is up to CC to resubmit CC0 for > > approval. > > > > > > Regards, > > > > > > Nigel > > > > > > On 3/16/17, 8:56 AM, "License-discuss on behalf of Karan, Cem F > CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US)" > > boun...@opensource.org < Caution-mailto:boun...@opensource.org > > on behalf of cem.f.karan@mail.mil < Caution- > > mailto:cem.f.karan@mail.mil > > wrote: > > > > > > All, I want to keep this alive as I haven't seen a > conclusion yet. Earlier I > > > asked if OSI would accept the US Government (USG) putting > its non-copyrighted > > > works out under CC0 as Open Source **provided** that the USG > accepts and > > > redistributes copyrighted contributions under an > OSI-approved license. Is > > > this acceptable to OSI? Should I move thi
