discuss: Bento Poetic License (resubmission)

[Michael St . Hippolyte]

[ Please discuss this license.  In particular, should a copyright
license be used to enforce trademark rights?  -russ ]

Greetings,

We (bentodev.org) submitted a proposed license to 
license-approval at opensource.org on April 30.  In order to facilitate 
approval, we would like to resubmit the proposal, reorganized and 
augmented to better conform to the submission guidelines at 
http://opensource.org/docs/certification_mark.html.

Name of license: Bento Poetic License

Submitter: bentodev.org, the copyright holder of the Bento language 
specification and reference implementation.

1. The license is posted at http://www.bentodev.org/poetic-license.html

2. The Bento Poetic License is derived from the Artistic License.  The 
Artistic License was designed to allow the copyright holder to maintain 
some degree of "artistic control" over the development of the software 
package being licensed.  It also places restrictions on the 
commercialization of software; in particular, it forbids charging a fee 
for the licensed software (though charging fees for support and copying 
are allowed).  Our intent is to narrow the restrictions in the original 
license in order to make it more attractive to potential users.  
Specifically, we have more precisely defined the criteria for 
acceptable modifications to the software, and we have removed all 
restrictions on commercialization of the software.

3. The Bento Poetic License is broadly compatible with all OSI-approved 
licenses.  The only action which it unconditionally forbids is the 
removal of copyright and legal notices from the software, which we 
believe is prohibited by all the other licenses as well.  Furthermore, 
it contains no provision which would preclude the restrictions and 
requirements of stricter licenses such as the GPL.

4. The license has already been posted to 
license-discuss at opensource.org.  We have no objection to reposting of 
the license along with our personal and/or organizational identities.

If you have any questions or desire further clarification of any points 
please do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you for your consideration.

Michael St. Hippolyte
mash at brooklyndigital.net
http://www.bentodev.org
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