Approval Request: RPSL 1.0

Thu Nov 21 18:48:19 UTC 2002

Hi Larry,

We're looking forward to the complete review.  In the meantime, here's
some comments:

On Fri, 2002-11-08 at 17:28, Lawrence E. Rosen wrote: 
> 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.

We believe that this is a defensible definition of Derivative Work.  My
understanding based on discussion on this list is that this term can
vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so we felt it was important to
define what we mean by this term.

> 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.

We understand the risk here, but we feel that this is an important
clause in our license.  As mentioned before, this clause was explicitly
included to close the "ASP loophole" as defined in the following
article:

http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=00/11/01/1636202

We wrote this clause in such a way as to circumscribe an "ASP" as
closely as possible, while not opening a loophole to keep ASPs from
having asymetric benefit from the work of the community.

Rob

> > --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
> > 
> 
> --
> license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
-- 
Rob Lanphier, Helix Community Coordinator - RealNetworks
http://helixcommunity.org http://rtsp.org http://realnetworks.com

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