X.Net, Inc. License

[Karsten M. Self]

on Sat, Aug 04, 2001 at 11:24:15PM -0700, Brian DeSpain (brian at xao.com) wrote:

> Russell Nelson wrote:
> 
> > Open source or not?
> > -russ
> >
> > Carl W. Brown <cbrown at xnetinc.com> writes:
> >  > <h1>The X.Net, Inc. License</h1>
> >  >
> >  > <tt>
> >  >
> >  > <p>Copyright (c) 2000-2001 X.Net, Inc. Lafayette, California,
> >  > USA</p>
> >  >
> >  > <p>Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
> >  > obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
> >  > files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
> >  > restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy,
> >  > modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies
> >  > of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
> >  > furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:</p>
> >  >
> >  > <p>The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
> >  > included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.</p>
> >  >
> >  > <p>THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
> >  > EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
> >  > MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
> >  > NONINFRINGEMENT.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
> >  > HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
> >  > WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
> >  > OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
> >  > DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.</p>
> >  >
> >  > <p>This agreement shall be governed in all respects by the laws of
> >  > the State of California and by the laws of the United States of
> >  > America.</p>

> This is nearly identical to the Apache license.

It's rather different in that it lacks an advertising clause, actually.

It's closer to the MIT license, and its derivatives the XFree86 Project
and SPI licenses.

The differences are:

Deletion:

    Except as contained in this notice, the name of the X Consortium
    shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale,
    use or other dealings in this Software without prior written
    authorization from the X Consortium.

Addition:

    <p>This agreement shall be governed in all respects by the laws of
    the State of California and by the laws of the United States of
    America.<p>

I'm assuming that markup isn't a legal part of the license -- and would
strongly encourage submissions be made as plaintext, not HTML-tagged
content.

With the exception of the deletion and the jurisdiction clause, the
licenses are identical.  I'd kick this back to X.Net and ask whether
they'd be willing to consider the MIT license, which is already on the
approved list, or modifications within the pattern already established
in application of the MIT license to other projects.

But, yes, it appears to meet the definition:

    1.  Free redistribution.
    2.  Source code.
    3.  Derived works
    4.  Integrity of Author's Source Code.
    5.  No discrimination against persons or groups.
    6.  No discrimination against fields of endeavor.
    7.  Distribution of license
    8.  License must not be specific to a product
    9.  License must not contaminate other software.

IANAL.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>            http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?               There is no K5 cabal
  http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/                 http://www.kuro5hin.org
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Geek for Hire                          http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html
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