License Counseling

[Ian Lance Taylor]

Greg Herlein <gherlein at herlein.com> writes:

> > Of course.  He just can't [*] call his license either (IMHO) Open Source
> > or Free.
> 
> Perhaps not Free.  Why not open source?  You can read, modify,
> and redistribute the source.  The only caveat is that you have to
> send the author a copy of the changes?  Come on!  What's not free
> abotu that?  Contrast that with merely making your changes back
> available to everyone - what's the difference?  Cotrast that with
> the Apache license that prevents you from calling your derived
> work Apache.  What's the difference?  The author is making a
> restriction. 

To quote
    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
``You should also have the freedom to make modifications and use them
privately in your own work or play, without even mentioning that they
exist. If you do publish your changes, you should not be required to
notify anyone in particular, or in any particular way.''

So it would not be free software by the FSF's definition.

However, I agree that I don't see anything in the OSD which prohibits
such a requirement.  I don't think it would be wise to use such a
requirement, but I don't see any basis for saying that the license is
not open source.

Note that the APSL, which is on the OSI approved list, includes a
public reporting requirement for all modifictions (section 2.2 (c) in
    http://www.opensource.org/licenses/apsl.html

Ian