Simple Public License, v0.20

[Justin Wells]

I have a revised version of the SPL, which incorporates some of
the comments Rod made on the last version. I've also been talking
to several people who wish to use my software in conjunction with
software under the Apache/BSD license, and so I have added a section
which I believe allows them to do that.

I am especially interested to hear people's comments on section (3), 
which allows use of the SPL with other open source licenses. It's new
material, and so it's the most likely to have problems.

I have dropped the language about consultants from the SPL, since
Rod thinks that this would not be feasible. Instead I will do as
he suggested and offer a separate license for consulting use.

Also, I've dropped the "beneficial owner" clause. I still want to
include some language like that, but it's going to be difficult to
get right. It occurs to me that I could do the beneficial owner
statement as a separate release later, independent of whatever license
my software is released under. So I will work on that as a separate 
document, not directly related to the license itself.

I'm hoping that the SPL will become a generally useful license, and I'm 
very glad to have your comments, as well as those of everyone else on 
the list. Everyone's comments have been extremely useful. 

I've attached the annotated version of the license below. Text, HTML, 
postscript, and PDF versions are available here:

   http://shimari.com

Thanks again!

Justin

 - - -

>                            Simple Public License 
>                                 Version 0.20
>
>
> "Our software" refers to the copyrighted work licensed under this
> agreement. "We", "us", and "our" refer to the copyright owners. "You"
> and "your" refer to each licensee. You are granted the non-exclusive rights 
> set forth in this agreement provided you agree to and comply with all of 
> its conditions. You indicate your acceptance of these terms by any use of 
> our software.
>

Any member of the public can be "you". "We" include all of the copyright
holders. "Our software" has been placed under this license, probably in 
a statement attached to the software itself.

This is how you wind up coming to accept this agreement: you don't get to
use the software unless you do.


>
> (1) "USE AND COPY OUR SOFTWARE FOR FREE"
> 
> You may use, display, and perform our software free of charge. You may 
> copy and distribute our software on its own, or as part of an aggregate 
> collection, provided that you copy all of it.
>

Basic rights of use. I specifically mention aggregate collections so that
they aren't treated as derived works.


>
> (2) "SHARE IMPROVEMENTS"
>
> You may improve our software provided that prior to any public or third 
> party use you distribute the improved version to the public, including all 
> source code, free of charge, through an electronic medium customarily used 
> for software exchange. An improvement is an alteration to the source code, 
> structure, sequence, or organization of our software, including alterations 
> performed by linking or patching.
>

> You grant the following irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide rights to 
> your improved version: any recipient may use it under this agreement, 
> and we may copy, display, perform, adapt, and sublicense it.
>

This is the basic copyleft. Note that it is weakened by section 3.

The phrase "prior to any public or third party use" is intended to capture
modified versions of the software that are not distributed, but are put up
on a public application server. I want modifications to those as well.

The phrase "electronic medium" is intended to include email, websites,
public CVS archives, ftp sites, and so forth.


> Your improvement must not cause our software to depend on additional 
> software unless that additional software is distributed to the public under 
> a license which allows everyone to use and distribute it free of charge; 
> also, under any patent claim licensable by you which would be infringed by 
> use of your improvement, you grant to each recipient a worldwide 
> non-exclusive royalty-free patent license to use, sell, import, and 
> transfer the improvement as part of our software or adaptations of it.
> 

You can't fool the world into relying on your modifications, and then 
pull the rug out from under everyone and announce your patent and/or
charge a lot of money for the software you've created dependencies on.


>
> (3) "COMBINE OUR SOFTWARE WITH YOUR WORK"
> 
> You may include or otherwise combine an unmodified copy of our software
> as a whole, plus a compiled version of it, with your own separate source 
> materials to create a combined work. You may distribute your combined 
> work to anyone provided your separate source materials form a bona fide  
> application which you distribute to the public, free of charge and including 
> all source code, under any open source license approved by the Open Source 
> Initiative (opensource.org) or under this agreement.
>

You can combine our software with other materials as you like. If you 
want to be able to distribute the result, the other materials must 
be opensource.

> You may permit third party recipients to use, display, perform, copy, and 
> distribute your combined work as a whole, without modification, in any 
> manner also permitted for your separate source materials.
>

You may use the combined work as if it were under the other license, 
except for alterations (omitted from the above list) which require some
special treatment.


> You may permit third party recipients to adapt your separate source material 
> under your license (possibly without disclosing source code) and adapt our 
> software under section (2). The adapted parts may then be recombined to form 
> a new combined work which may be used under the same terms as your combined 
> work. Thus your combined work may be treated as if it were covered by your 
> license, except that modifications to our software itself must occur under 
> section (2) of this agreement.
>

Alter our code under our license, your code under your license.

Though you have to start out with an opensource application, it doesn't
have to end up that way. The previously opensource body of the work could
be adapted in a closed-source manner, creating a proprietary work that is
based on a published opensource work.


>
> (4) "CREDIT US"
>
> When you distribute a work based on our software you must include our 
> copyright notice, attach a copy of this agreement, and, wherever the 
> authors of the work are credited, state that you used our software under 
> this agreement.
>

I don't just want to be credited in source code.


>
> (5) "GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS"
>
> This agreement represents the entire agreement between us, and it is 
> effective until terminated. You may terminate it at any time. It will 
> terminate immediately, without notice, if you fail to comply with any of
> its provisions, or file litigation against us relating to our software. 
> Upon termination you lose all rights to our software and must immediately 
> stop using it. You may, however, continue to distribute existing aggregate 
> collections containing our software for up to one further year.
>

I don't want to force people to make their source code free. If they 
violate the license, they have to stop using the software. However, they
don't have to expensively recall all the CD's they have pressed.


> Nothing in this agreement shall be interpreted strictly against us. If
> any provision of this agreement is ruled invalid, the rest shall remain
> in effect, and the invalid provision shall be reformed to the minimum
> extent necessary to make it valid. If a new version of this agreement
> is published by Semiotek Inc. you may opt to use your copy of our
> software under the terms of the new version so published.
>

I know the "strictly against us" stuff isn't likely to fly in all regions, 
but it might work some places. It's from an AT&T opensource license. The
severability clause and language to deal with invalid clauses hopefully 
ensures that in jurisdictions where this or other phrases would get us 
into hot water, we can get out of the hot water.


> "Source code" is the electronic form of a work preferred for making 
> modifications to it. Software "depends on" additional software if it is 
> fully functional only when that additional software is present. "Combining" 
> two works means linking, concatenating, or including one with the other. 
>

A couple of definitions. Probably I need some more.

>
> (6) "NO WARRANTY AND DISCLAIMER OF ALL LIABILITY"
>
> Our software has been provided to you for free, with source code, but 
> without support or maintenance of any kind: it may contain defects, and
> may not conform to its documentation. You must not use our software
> where there is any risk of death or personal injury.
>

This gives the court a good reason why we disclaim all our warranties.
If we tried to disclaim liability associated with personal injury or
death we would get into really big trouble, so we don't allow that use.

In Canada there is an implied warranty that software must conform to 
its documentation, so I want to make sure we don't get hit with that.


> If you make our software, or an adaptation of it, accessible to a third party 
> then you are solely responsible for any warranty provided with it, and agree 
> to indemnify, hold harmless, and defend us against all losses, damages and
> costs arising from legal actions brought against us by such third parties.
>

Suppose someone puts our software on a website, and a user of the website,
who has never seen our license agreement, is somehow damaged by reliance
on that website. That third party would not be subject to our disclaimers
and could sue us. Or instead of a website it could be a user of one of 
the proprietary works we allowed. In any case, we don't want to be 
responsible for it.


> Our software is provided to you on an "AS IS" basis. WITHOUT LIMITATION, WE 
> DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, CONDITIONS, OR REPRESENTATIONS, WHETHER EXPRESS OR 
> IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF 
> FITNESS FOR A SPECIFIC PURPOSE, MERCHANTABILITY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
>

In Canada and the UK it is not good enough to disclaim implied "warranties"
of merchantability, etc., you must disclaim them as implied conditions.


> IN NO EVENT SHALL WE BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT,
> SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL (INCLUDING LOST PROFITS), EXEMPLARY,
> AND PUNITIVE DAMAGES, HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY,
> WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE)
> ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OR DISTRIBUTION OF OUR SOFTWARE OR
> THE EXERCISE OF ANY RIGHT GRANTED HEREIN, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF 
> THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

I don't understand most of this, it's largely copied form other licenses.