Approval request for BXAPL

[Nathan Kelley]

To OSI License Discussion <license-discuss at opensource.org> subscribers,

> From: Abe Kornelis <abe at bixoft.nl>,

> Dear members of this license discussion list and
> dear members of the OSI board,
>
> We (Abe Kornelis of B.V. Bixoft with support from Steve Lhomme of 
> Mukoli)
> would have preferred to use an existing OSI-approved license, or a copy 
> of
> one with only slight modifications. Unfortunately none of the licenses
> currently approved by the OSI meet all of our criteria:
> a) Distinguish between software programs and programming tools.
> b) Require contributors to allow the copyright holder to incorporate 
> any or
>     all of their *distributed* modifications in future releases of the
>     software.
> c) Treat copyrights and patent rights separately and explicitly.
> d) Disallow object-only distributions.
> e) Require that modifications remain recognizable as such.
> f) Make our dual licensing policy explicit.
> g) Allow the copyright holder to select the applicable law.
> h) Allow application of local languages in addition to english.
>
> So we needed to create our own - this has become the BXAPL,
> or the Bixoft Public License. Drafts of this license have been
> mentioned once or twice in this list, so this may not be too
> much of a surprise.
>
> Since so many licenses seem to be created with only minor
> differences, we have tried to create a template license,
> which we think will be usable to many.
>
> We request that this license be discussed and welcome any comments.

I have read the Bixoft Public License (proposal version). I believe that 
it is consistent with the Open Source Definition, and meets the 
requirements for OSI certification.

However, I do have a few questions on it:

Item 10: The stated intention is to "denote software items that use the 
Software, but that are not Derivatives of it". But do the provisions of 
10 achieve that? What modifications to the programming tools, as 
stipulated in c), are sufficient to make the output a derived work?

Item 16: I could be completely wrong here, but a) seems to effectively 
create a situation where patent holders would pay others for use of 
their own patents, while all third parties would be allowed to continue 
infringement - with the only alternative being to withdraw the claim. Is 
this correct? While I would love to see some large patent holders taken 
down a peg or two, I believe this will be ruled unenforceable should it 
ever get to court.

Cheers, Nathan.
________________________________________________
Nathan "Phyax" Kelley

    email | phyax at runbox.com, phyax at mac.com
      icq | 4618849
    yahoo | phyax
________________________________________________

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