Approval Request: RPSL 1.0

[Lawrence E. Rosen]

You realize, of course, that the following definition from your license
goes way beyond what a derivative work is under copyright law.  That's
ok to do in a license, but you may surprise licensees who don't take the
time to read your license carefully.  

   1.6 "Derivative Work" means either the Covered Code or
   any derivative work under United States copyright law,
   and including any work containing or including any
   portion of the Covered Code or Modifications, either
   verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into
   another language. Derivative Work also includes any work
   which combines any portion of Covered Code or Modifications
   with code not otherwise governed by the terms of this License.

At one time I stole your definition of "Externally Deploy" for the OSL
(thanks!), but then I got lots of feedback from the community that it
was way overreaching.  I ended up narrowing the definition substantially
to reflect the concerns of many that they couldn't live under such a
broad definition.  Some people thought it unduly restricted the *use* of
software as opposed to its *distribution*.  You might encounter the same
resistance in the marketplace.

   1.7 "Externally Deploy" means to Deploy the Covered Code
   in any way that may be accessed or used by anyone other
   than You, used to provide any services to anyone other
   than You, or used in any way to deliver any content to
   anyone other than You, whether the Covered Code is
   distributed to those parties, made available as an
   application intended for use over a computer network,
   or used to provide services or otherwise deliver content
   to anyone other than You.

I haven't had the time to read the rest of your license in detail.

/Larry Rosen

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rob Lanphier [mailto:robla at real.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2002 10:16 PM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: Approval Request: RPSL 1.0
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Just a reminder to look at the RPSL.  I haven't seen any 
> comments on the 
> 1.0 version, so I guess it must be perfect.  :)
> 
> Rob
> -- 
> Rob Lanphier, Helix Community Coordinator - RealNetworks 
> http://helixcommunity.org http://rtsp.org http://realnetworks.com
> 
> On Mon, 2002-10-28 at 19:47, Rob Lanphier wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> > 
> > Here is a link to the RealNetworks Public Source License (RPSL):
> > 
> > http://www.helixcommunity.org/content/rpsl
> > 
> > We'd like to submit this for consideration as an OSI-certified 
> > license.
> > 
> > As discussed in the August 1 thread, our intent is to 
> create a license 
> > that is similar in goals to the GPL, with the following key 
> > differences:
> > 
> > *  Closing the "ASP loophole".  We want to ensure that someone who 
> > sets up a business as an ASP is subject to the same community 
> > obligations as someone who creates a shrinkwrap product.  See 
> > http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=00/11/01/1636202 for 
> more details 
> > on this.
> > 
> > *  Clear language with respect to the scope of patent rights 
> > RealNetworks grants to the community.  We are offering a patent 
> > license to the code we issue.
> > 
> > *  Right for RealNetworks to relicense.  The subgoals for 
> this are as
> > follows:
> >    *  We want to ensure we can bring changes back into our main
> >       development trunk, which is dually licensed under the 
> RPSL and the
> >       RealNetworks Community Source License (a community 
> source license
> >       modelled after the Java Community Source License)
> >    *  We want to be able to relicense this under other terms later
> >       (perhaps GPL compatibility will become feasible)
> >    *  We offer licensing under other terms under custom agreement
> > 
> > *  Compability with most currently-approved OSI licenses 
> (exceptions 
> > being licenses that would read on our RPSL'd code)
> > 
> > Let us know what you think, and what we can do to ease the process 
> > along.
> > 
> > Thanks
> > Rob
> 
> --
> license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
> 

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