[CAVO] Fwd: [License-review] Submission of OSET Public License for Approval

Wed Sep 2 15:15:18 UTC 2015

David-    How many people utilize OPL vs GPL..   ?  Is OPL still at zero ?
What about " eyes on the code " ?  Do you consider this a self serving
solution license in search of a previously non existent problem ?

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 8:06 AM, David RR Webber (XML) <david at drrw.info>
wrote:

> Brent,
>
> I share the concern of "what is really going on?" here - the stated needs
> are not exactly linked to clear business drivers and requirements and
> scenarios - there's a lot of legal contingency and "what iffing" covering
> here and maybes.
>
> However - this is one interesting area:
>
> Section 5.3 of the 2.0 license now requires that a licensee who does
> not abide by the terms of the license must make the Covered Software
> available in Source Code Form on a publicly available computer net
> work for a period of no less than three (3) years
>
> This is certainly an area that GPL3 has not specifically covered in detail
> - its assumed that the code is made available - but this has often been an
> issue - particularly in regard to the latest code - rather than some prior
> code set. And then also - the code can be made available - but use and
> verification of it can be made opaque by omission of components or
> instructions that are needed to actually replicate deployed build packages.
>
> There are definitely issues with government contracts - but whether those
> are actually needed to be covered in the license is not clear. Certainly
> the government general assumes they "own" whatever is provided or touched
> during fufillment of a project - unless otherwise clearly noted.
>
> David
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [CAVO] Fwd: [License-review] Submission of OSET Public
> License for Approval
> From: Brent Turner <turnerbrentm at gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, September 02, 2015 3:47 am
> To: CAVO <cavo at opensource.org>
>
> I'll punt this one to the big brains...but Meeker sounds like she is
> justifying a solution to a non-existent problem..  i.e . why would a new
> license be needed other than GPL.  ?  When asked previous who in government
> craved a special OSET created license.. the silence was notable.
>
> BT
>
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 9:33 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com>
> wrote:
>
>> FYI. Larry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab®|PRO
>>
>>
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: "Meeker, Heather J."
>> Date:09/01/2015 3:18 PM (GMT-08:00)
>> To: license-review at opensource.org
>> Cc: Gregory Miller ,John Sebes ,"Meeker, Heather J." ,
>> christine at osetfoundation.org
>> Subject: [License-review] Submission of OSET Public License for Approval
>>
>> 1 September 2015
>>
>> Members of the OSI License Review Community
>> VIA EMAIL to license-review at opensource.org
>>
>> CC:         Christine M. Santoro, Esq., OSET Foundation General Counsel
>>                 John Sebes, CTO, OSET Foundation / TrustTheVote Project
>>
>> RE:          Application for Consideration of the OSET Foundation OPL for
>> OSD Compliance Approval
>>
>> Greetings, Members of the OSI License Review Community:
>>
>> The Open Source Election Technology Foundation (OSET) is pleased to
>> submit the OSET Public License (OPL) for OSI license review and for
>> discussion with the larger community.   We believe the OPL falls into the
>> special purpose category.  We coordinated the drafting of this license,
>> with review and input from other lawyers both within and outside of the
>> Open Source Election Technology Foundation (OSET).
>>
>> OSET’s tax-exempt non-profit mission is to facilitate the development of
>> technology to deliver free, and fair elections within an accountable and
>> verifiable process.  The public servants tasked with running our elections
>> are poised to embrace the benefits of open source software licensing, but
>> they also must work within the procurement rules of their profession.
>> While we hesitated to create a new license, we have done so to meet the
>> needs of our user community.  Existing open source licenses do not deliver
>> what our community needs, and we have written the OPL to meet these needs,
>> and bridge the gap between open source licensing and many county and state
>> government technology procurement regulations.
>>
>> Our goal is for the OPL to facilitate the implementation of verifiable,
>> accurate, secure, and transparent elections system technology that are not
>> only federal- and state- certified, but also demonstrably worthy of the
>> public’s trust.  We believe this can only be accomplished using open source
>> software.
>>
>> Our stakeholder community—elections administrators and officials—are very
>> receptive to acquiring open source software-based election and voting
>> systems provided the software (and related support and services) can be
>> legally acquired through their procurement process.  A primary ingredient
>> of their procurement process is terms and conditions of software licensing
>> that meet their regulatory requirements.
>>
>> While governments already often acquire open source technology on an ad
>> hoc basis under existing licenses, they face more, and different, hurdles
>> acquiring open source election systems.  Open source software that is
>> merely part of a larger IT system is usually covered by two documents—the
>> open source license, and an overarching (and often superseding) procurement
>> agreement that fits with the applicable regulations.  Where an agency is
>> acquiring an entire open source technology system—especially technology to
>> be used in public elections and subject to competitive bidding—procurement
>> regulations need to be handled properly within the four corners of the open
>> source license.
>>
>> Accordingly, OSET has based its license on the Mozilla Public License
>> version 2.0 (“MPL”) with the addition of six modifications:
>> 1.            Governing Law
>> 2.            Venue
>> 3.            Government Rights
>> 4.            March-in Rights
>> 5.            Sovereign immunity
>> 6.            Deployment
>>
>> These modifications address necessary requirements for the provisioning
>> of election software to county and state government agencies and their
>> contractors.  Election technology procurement takes place primarily at the
>> local (state, county, and jurisdictional) level; however, we would like the
>> license to work at the federal level as well.
>>
>> Also, we are mindful of the benefit of compatibility with other
>> licenses.  Like MPL 2.0, the OPL is compatible with GPL and LGPL 3.0.  So,
>> all software issued under OPL can be used in GPL and LGPL projects that
>> have adopted the version 3 licenses. Therefore, any project that does not
>> require the added provisions of OSET is free to elect not to use them, and
>> to use GPL, or LGPL instead.  We think this is the best way to address our
>> constituents’ needs while limiting the compatibility problems of a new
>> license.
>>
>> We have posted the text of the license (in plain text, PDF, and HTML),
>> our rationale document, and an FAQ, as support for our submission.
>> http://www.osetfoundation.org/public-license/.
>>
>> Thank you for your consideration and we look forward to the discussion!
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Heather Meeker
>> O’Melveny & Myers
>> Counsel to OSET
>> +1 650.473.2635
>> &
>> Gregory Miller
>> Co-Executive Director, Chief Development Officer, OSET
>> +1 503.703.5150
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> CAVO mailing list
>> CAVO at opensource.org
>> https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cavo
>>
>>
> ------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> CAVO mailing list
> CAVO at opensource.org
> https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cavo
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CAVO mailing list
> CAVO at opensource.org
> https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cavo
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/cavo_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20150902/2c8e83cc/attachment.html>