Discuss: The Open-Source Milestone Application Framewor

[Akil Franklin]

Forrest J. Cavalier III [mailto:mibsoft at mibsoftware.com] wrote:

> Notifying a specific entity requires that the entity exists.  This
> may not be the case in 10 years, or next week (which is not an
> insult, just a statement of the risk that an adopter will recognize.)
> 
> Secondly, requiring a specific method of notification requires that
> the method is available.  This could allow the licensor to control
> who can use the method, which is a clear OSD violation.

Excellent points. The main issue seems to be "what happens when
Milestone goes out of business or changes their URL?"

It seems to me that we can fix this issue by amending a few conditions
to the clause. How about the following:

7. Milestone must be notified when this product is placed into a
production system (either modified or not). Such notification can be
made by visiting www.techMilestone.com and filling out the appropriate
online form. If you have any questions about this process, please send
an email to MAFAdmin at techMilestone.com. 

If for any reason the url www.techMilestone.com and email address
MAFAdmin at techMilestone.com should become unavailable to the global
internet for a period of longer than 15 days, publication of inclusion
and modifications at a location accessible to the global internet and
pointed out in any binary distributions will serve as sufficient
notification to satisfy this clause.

It seems to me that this satisfies the argument (of course I welcome
suggestions on phrasing). A short summary of the Bruce Perens et al.
opinion on  the APSL 1.0 clause 2.2(c) follows:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Section 2.2(c) of the APSL requires that the producer of modifications
to APSL-licensed code use a particular URL in the Apple.com domain to
notify Apple. While the demise of Apple Computer, Inc. is unlikely in
the near future, that sad event would leave us unable to comply with
this section of the APSL. This would constitute a restriction on all
rights granted by the license, including those rights necessary to
qualify under the Open Source Definition. The Free Software community
plans a very long lifetime for its software, and we hope that Apple will
cooperate by changing this provision so that APSL-licensed software
could survive without Apple. We suggest that the simple publication of
modifications, such as posting on a personal web site accessible to the
global internet and pointed out in any binary distributions, be all that
is required. This is consistent with other licenses in our community. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Forrest J. Cavalier III [mailto:mibsoft at mibsoftware.com]
> Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 6:58 AM
> To: Akil Franklin
> Cc: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: RE: Discuss: The Open-Source Milestone Application Framewor
> 
> "Akil Franklin" <afranklin at techMilestone.com> wrote:
> 
> > Article 7 is basically meant to ensure that the authors of the
> framework
> > are notified when it is used (i.e. placed into a production system
> > either modified or not). Again, the goal is the sharing of
> information.
> > Perhaps the following would be better:
> >
> > 7. Milestone must be notified when this product is placed into a
> > production system (either modified or not). Such notification can be
> > made by visiting www.techMilestone.com and filling out the
> appropriate
> > online form. If you have any questions about this process, please
> send
> > an email to MAFAdmin at techMilestone.com.
> >
> > Better?
> 
> I don't think it is better.
> 
> Notifying a specific entity requires that the entity exists.  This
> may not be the case in 10 years, or next week (which is not an
> insult, just a statement of the risk that an adopter will recognize.)
> 
> Secondly, requiring a specific method of notification requires that
> the method is available.  This could allow the licensor to control
> who can use the method, which is a clear OSD violation.
> 
> For community philosophy on this point, you can read what Bruce
> Perens et al. wrote about the APSL 1.0 clause 2.2(c) at.
> 
>    http://perens.com/Articles/APSL.html
> 
> As you can see in the APSL version 1.2, clause 2.2(c) does not
> have the same problem.
> 
> --
> license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3

--
license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3