"Open Source" Motif

[Justin Wells]

On Mon, May 15, 2000 at 08:20:46PM +0200, Martin Schulze wrote:

>    QUESTION:
>    Does the Open Group Public License for Motif meet the Open Source
>    Guidelines?
> 
>    ANSWER:
>    No. The Open Group Public License for Motif grants rights only to use
>    the software on or with operating systems that are themselves Open
>    Source programs. In restricting the applicability of the license to
>    Open Source platforms this does not meet term 8 of the Open Software
>    Definition (http://www.opensource.org/osd.html).

I'm not so sure.

The license does not appear to restrict use. It only restricts distribution
and sublicensing, asserting that it must be "on, with, or for" open source 
operating systems. 

This is equivalent to saying "if you want to distribute my software, you have
to include one of X, Y, or Z, which are all open source".

There's lots of precedent for an open source license insisting that you 
distribute some other open source package along with the original. For 
example, licenses which insist that you distribute the original version of
the program if you distribute any derivative work. 

Maybe their lawyers just did a bad job, but it seems to me that if you 
received your copy of Open Motif along with an open source operating system,
you can use it however you like.

Even supposing that the license DOES restrict use to be only with open 
source operating systems--how can you throw this license out, and not also
throw out the GPL? 

The GPL limits use of GPL'd software such that you can only combine it with
other software if that other software is also GPL'd. If the Open Motif 
license violates the OSD, then for the same reason, why doesn't the GPL?

Neither license restricts "fields of endeavour", in my opinion. You can 
use Open Motif in any "field of endeavor" providing that your solution 
also includes an open source operating system. 

I think you step on to very dangerous ground when you call non-opensource 
development a "field of endeavour". Dangerous ground which might give way
under the GPL, and prevent other things which we would like to allow.

Justin