Modifying existing licenses in minor ways

[Adam C. Engst]

Hey folks,

Down to the nitty gritty. It's looking like we're going to want to 
use the Sun Industry Standards Source License 1.1 (SISSL) for XNS. 
It's pretty generic throughout except for the following:

<http://www.openoffice.org/licenses/sissl_license.html>

>Sun Industry Standards Source License - Version 1.1

Title: I'm presuming that the title should remain the same (rather 
than calling it the XNS Industry Standards Source License or 
something). Is that true, even though it's covering a different 
technology than originally intended (and one that's not from Sun)?

>6.1 New Versions.
>Sun may publish revised and/or new versions of the License from time 
>to time. Each version will be given a distinguishing version number.

>6.2 Effect of New Versions.
>Once Original Code has been published under a particular version of 
>the License, You may always continue to use it under the terms of 
>that version. You may also choose to use such Original Code under 
>the terms of any subsequent version of the License published by Sun. 
>No one other than Sun has the right to modify the terms applicable 
>to Original Code.

These two clauses apply to new versions of the license itself. 6.1 
(letting Sun release new versions) doesn't seem problematic since 6.2 
says that code covered by a particular version can always be covered 
by that version. And I presume that by using this license, we could 
choose to use future versions as we wish. Initially, I was concerned 
that the last sentence would enable Sun to modify the terms, but on 
reflection, it would seem that sentence is instead saying only Sun 
can modify the license itself, and the fact that we're using it with 
non-Sun Original Code is irrelevant. Am I reading that correctly?

>EXHIBIT A - Sun Standards License
>
>"The contents of this file are subject to the Sun Standards
>License Version 1.1 (the "License");
>You may not use this file except in compliance with the
>License. You may obtain a copy of the
>License at _______________________________.
>
>Software distributed under the License is distributed on
>an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either
>express or implied. See the License for the specific
>language governing rights and limitations under the License.
>
>The Original Code is ______________________________________.
>
>The Initial Developer of the Original Code is:
>Sun Microsystems, Inc..
>
>Portions created by: _______________________________________
>
>are Copyright (C): _______________________________________
>
>All Rights Reserved.
>
>Contributor(s): _______________________________________

Obviously, we'll have to change Exhibit A to include a different 
Initial Developer, but the implication of having this information in 
an Exhibit would seem to be that it should be filled in. I don't see 
any problem with modifying this part of the License for use with XNS 
- OSI shouldn't need to certify the Exhibit, since it's no different 
than a Contributor modifying the Exhibit. Seem reasonable?

>EXHIBIT B - Standards
>
>The Standard is defined as the following:
>
>OpenOffice.org XML File Format Specification, located at 
>http://xml.openoffice.org
>
>OpenOffice.org Application Programming Interface Specification, located at
>http://api.openoffice.org

Similarly, the Standard definitions listed here would seem to be 
"fill-in" material and something to which OSI wouldn't mind 
modification. Seem reasonable?

cheers... -Adam

______________________________________________________________________
Adam C. Engst, XNSORG President                  XNS Name: =Adam Engst
                Email: <ace at xns.org>         Web: <http://www.xns.org/>