Thoughts on the proposed Novell Community License

[Roland Turner]

{{ I've probed the archive the hard way and discovered that there are
just three articles to date on the NCL (1335, 1337 and 1338, discovered
through the sending of just 23 "get" messages!), and read them. My
question/offer re web-hosting still stands. Anyone? }}

{{ Needless to say: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. }}

On the license itself:

> 4. Novell may publish revised versions of the NCL from time to time; you may 
> license Contributions under this version or any subsequent versions. If You 
> modify the NCL, you must remove all references to Novell other than a prominent 
> notice that your version contains different terms than the NCL.

This is potentially ambiguous. It does not say that you may choose to
license (other people's) contributions under a subsequent version of the
license which you happened to obtain by modifying the license yourself,
no sane person is likely to think that it says this, but in a world
where someone has apparently proposed the creation of a test suite that
fails if the subject source code's checksum has changed, open loopholes
are best kept to a minimum. This one is pretty easy to close: after the
words "any subsequent versions" add the words "published by Novell". It
might also be worth adding after the words "modify the NCL" the words
"for use when publishing your own, original work", or similar.

My other suggestion relates to achieving Gnu GPL compatibility. I am
aware of two approaches:

- Dual license.

I proposed this to mozilla.org (see
news://news.mozilla.org/350501A8.5EE6AC4C@arrakis.com.au) 18 months ago,
but was unable to convince the key people. Subsequently, mozilla.org has
recognised (see http://www.mozilla.org/mozilla-at-one.html) the failure
to cater to the Gnu GPL community as having been a problem and is
beginning to take steps to improve the situation. The dual-licensing
practice has not created undesirable forking for Perl (Gnu GPL +
Artistic License), but has been valuable enough for Larry to keep it up.

- Gnu LGPL clause 3

All licenses that are not the Gnu GPL are incompatible with the Gnu GPL.
Some licenses (notably Gnu LGPL, and some BSD-like licenses) are liberal
enough that material covered by them can become Gnu GPL compatible, by
allowing the licensee to opt to apply the Gnu GPL terms to the licensed
material, to the exclusion of all other licenses (for that copy and any
further copies/derivative works). This allows components of a piece of
software under one of these "permissive" licenses to be incorporated
into larger works which are covered by the Gnu GPL.

Both approaches have their advantages.

If Novell intends to release several independent works under this
license, the first approach provides the flexibility to choose on a
work-at-a-time basis whether or not to pursue Gnu GPL compatibility,
rather than providing blanket support. Given that the primary reason for
not using Gnu GPL appears, however, to be about provide the arbitration
option, there may be no reason to exercise this flexibility, so the
advantage may be nil.

The second approach simplifies Novell's maintenance of a single source
tree, and indeed, weakens the potential for forking. It means that
contributors are implicitly granting redistribution under both licence
approaches (that is (i) with the arbitration option before loss of
license for breach or (ii) at the licensee's option, forgoing that
option in order to have the Gnu GPL apply). For contributors happy with
the NCL as it stands, this is not likely to be a problem. For
contributors whose preference is the Gnu GPL, there may be some
resistance to making large contributions under the more liberal license.
Bugfixes are not likely to be an issue, as the "stupid tax" applies to
constant re-application of small fixes, but larger additions, or
integrations with existing Gnu GPL'd code may never be contributed to
the NCL tree. Even this probably isn't a concern, as the changes/
additions/ integrations in question are never likely to be created if
the Gnu GPL option is never made available. Consequently, Novell has
something to gain, and no apparent potential for loss in applying this
approach.

So, I advise (indeed, implore) Novell to consider providing support for
Gnu GPL compatibility, preferably by working in a clause with equivalent
effect to the Gnu LGPL's clause 3, but alternately, dual-licensing or
perhaps some other approach entirely. To fail to do so would be to shut
out much of the Gnu GPL community, and essentially all of its code. This
is not likely to be desirable.

Regards,

- Raz