[CAVO] Open source election software

Wed Sep 28 22:38:17 UTC 2016

David RR Webber wrote:

> However the only thing that I see in the below from Larry is the overloaded use of the word "free" as in "giving away software" and "always free". And then qualified by - usually "free of cost".

"Free" may be overloaded in this brief article. But my choice of those words was intentional. 

For a more thorough definition, read "Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law" by Lawrence Rosen, with a foreword by Lawrence Lessig, published by Prentice Hall in July 2004. For those who want the "free" version of this book, go to http://rosenlaw.com/open-source-licensing-software-freedom-and-intellectual-property-law/. 

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen

Rosenlaw ( <http://www.rosenlaw.com/> www.rosenlaw.com) 

3001 King Ranch Rd., Ukiah, CA 95482

Cell: 707-478-8932 

This email is licensed under  <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/> CC-BY-4.0. Please copy freely.  

From: CAVO [mailto:cavo-bounces at opensource.org] On Behalf Of David RR Webber (XML)
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2016 11:59 AM
To: CAVO <cavo at opensource.org>
Subject: Re: [CAVO] Open source election software

Brent,

These days our personae are background checked routinely every day by NSA and others.

However the only thing that I see in the below from Larry is the overloaded use of the word "free" as in "giving away software" and "always free". And then qualified by - usually "free of cost".

This unfortunately sends the wrong messages completely. Firstly I would argue there really is nothing that is "free". There are implicit costs in everything.  Second people infer that "free" means they can do whatever they please, which of course is not how the GPL3 license works, it is not "giving away software". And of course then people infer that if something is being given away, that it is in someway inferior or flawed, or there is a hidden catch.

It is much clearer to say "there are no licensing costs". That's not as short or catchy as the word "free", but it does explain what is going on.

Making the barriers to adoption and use much lower is really the big picture, and then creating a community of use and contributors to the success of a software project.

The problem of course is that there is POSS - Paid Open Source Software, so Free does differentiate there.

Particularly for elections solutions, we need to articulate the need to develop a library of quality software assets that are common and available to election jurisdictions, and to do that collaboratively so that each State and Jurisdiction is not reinventing the wheel and paying again and again for the exact same thing.

David

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [CAVO] Open source election software
From: Brent Turner <turnerbrentm at gmail.com <mailto:turnerbrentm at gmail.com> >
Date: Wed, September 28, 2016 2:27 pm
To: "lrosen at rosenlaw.com <mailto:lrosen at rosenlaw.com> " <lrosen at rosenlaw.com <mailto:lrosen at rosenlaw.com> >, CAVO
<cavo at opensource.org <mailto:cavo at opensource.org> >

Per OSI.   Those creating redundant license should be background checked for motivation that could create future issue. Do you agree ? 

On Wednesday, September 28, 2016, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com <mailto:lrosen at rosenlaw.com> > wrote:

"Why CAVO Recommends GPLv3" by Lawrence Rosen (revised 9/28/2016)

There are many ways to distribute software. Valuable software nowadays is usually distributed under a free and open source license ("FOSS" license, in short), both because it is usually "free of cost" software but also "free of restrictions" on copying, making changes, and redistributing that software.

There are various open source licenses to choose from. They are listed at the www.opensource.org <http://www.opensource.org>  website. Unless a license is listed at that website, most developers and potential customers won't call it FOSS software. 

FOSS licenses offer several distinct ways to give software away. 

Choosing among those licenses for software is not an arbitrary game of darts. For open source election software that can be trusted and always free, the choice of license is particularly important. That is why CAVO recommends the General Public License version 3.0 ("GPLv3") as the best license to use. This article gives several important reasons why.

*       Among the many FOSS licenses, GPLv3 is the most modern, widely accepted, and best understood license available today. Its predecessor license, GPLv2, is historically far and away the most used worldwide; GPLv3 is replacing it in the rate of license adoption for new FOSS software.

*       GPLv3 is a reciprocal license. Once a project or distributor releases election software under the GPLv3, it will remain FOSS software in perpetuity under the GPLv3 license. Modifications to that FOSS software will also be distributed in perpetuity under the GPLv3. This guarantees that our election software won't ever be taken under commercial covers and turned into proprietary software with unacceptable lock-in and source code restrictions that make voting untrustworthy.

*       The GPLv3 license promotes open and shared development efforts. While it is possible to create excellent open source software under more permissive FOSS licenses, those licenses allow commercial fragmentation of the software. That isn't appropriate for widely used election software. 

*       The GPLv3 encourages trustworthy software. There is a law of software development named in honor of Linus Torvalds stating that "given enough eyeballs, all  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug> bugs are shallow"; or more formally: "Given a large enough  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_test> beta-tester and co- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmer> developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix will be obvious to someone." GPLv3 software projects invite eyeballs on all distributed versions of the software to identify bugs and security issues; other licenses don't always do that.

*       Although GPLv3 will specifically encourage FOSS development practices for the election code base and its derivative works, that GPLv3 license is nevertheless compatible with successful commercial software and support business as well. One need only refer to the robust Linux ecosystem and its contribution to diverse commercial technology worldwide, whose basic software is entirely under the GPLv2 and GPLv3 licenses. The GPL licenses made that possible.

*       GPLv3 will encourage innovation because GPLv3 source code is open to view and change. 

For these reasons, CAVO recommends that election software be distributed under GPLv3. This will inevitably create a diverse, worldwide, and enthusiastic community of software developers to create election systems we can all trust.

Since this article was first published (11/8/2014), the enthusiasm for open source election software has grown around the world. Projects now exist or are proposed whose software will be distributed under a wide variety of open source licenses. I have therefore added the following paragraph to encourage that enthusiasm.

I believe that creating free and open source election software, mostly under GPLv3, will help reassure voters everywhere that their votes will be efficiently collected and recorded fairly. But this does not mean that all election software must be created initially under GPLv3. There is a large project community we can build around many open source licenses that are compatible with GPLv3 for election system software. For example, the OSET OPL, the MPL, and the Apache License, and many others, are compatible with GPLv3. Such software can trivially be aggregated with GPLv3 software for use everywhere.

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen

Rosenlaw ( <http://www.rosenlaw.com/> www.rosenlaw.com) 

3001 King Ranch Rd., Ukiah, CA 95482

Cell: 707-478-8932 

This email is licensed under  <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/> CC-BY-4.0. Please copy freely.  

******************

>From the OSET OPL <https://opensource.org/licenses/OPL-2.1>  license:

3.3. Distribution of a Larger Work
You may create and distribute a Larger Work under terms of Your choice, provided that You also comply with the requirements of this License for the Covered Software. If the Larger Work is a combination of Covered Software with a work governed by one or more Secondary Lcenses, and the Covered Software is not Incompatible With Secondary Licenses, this License permits You to additionally distribute such Covered Software under the terms of such Secondary License(s), so that the recipient of the Larger Work may, at their option, further distribute the Covered Software under the terms of either this License or such Secondary License(s).

1.12. “Secondary License” means either the GNU General Public License, Version 2.0, the GNU Lesser General Public License, Version 2.1, the GNU Affero General Public License, Version 3.0, or any later versions of those licenses.

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