APSL 1.2

Russell Nelson nelson at crynwr.com
Fri Apr 6 18:09:36 UTC 2001


David Johnson writes:
 > "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor". The license could possibly be 
 > construed as discriminating against fields of endeavor. The APSL places 
 > restrictions upon commercial usage that it does not place upon personal 
 > usage. The word "commercial" is specifically used as a criteria in 
 > determining which restrictions and conditions apply. IANAL.

That would be a bit of a stretch.  That clause is in there because
some people were in the habit of saying that some software could only
be used in academia, or couldn't be used by the U.S. military.  Not
sure that we could paint it with such a broad brush as "commercial".

My own personal interpretation, <disclaimer>not to be confused with
the entire board's interpretation</disclaimer>, is that not unrelated
restrictions should be allowed.  It's okay for an open source license
to not license a company's trademark.  It's okay for an open source
license to require addition of your own copyright.  It's okay for an
open source license to require attribution.   And it's okay for an
open source license to require notification.

-- 
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