discuss: EPD CORE OPEN SOURCE LICENSE - Version 0.1

[Bill Moran]

John Cowan wrote:
> Bill Moran scripsit:
>> > In the large, this license seems rather close to the QPL. Have you
>> > examined that license for suitability?
>>
>>Yes, for the most part it seems very similar, but here's where I see
>>differences:
>>
>>Our license is designed specifically to respect the rights of anyone
>>and everyone who codes extensions to the system.  Notice how explicitly
>>it's stated in clause 1.  I didn't want to leave anything to chance
>>or interpretation.
> 
> Why not just strip your license down to paragraph 1, something like this?
> In that way it will be obviously an open-source license, without having to
> carefully parse all the language to make sure nothing is being stepped on.
> 
> 	This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
> 	modify it under the terms of the Q Public License as published
> 	by TrollTech AS Norway; either version 1, or (at your option)
> 	any later version.
> 
> 	This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
> 	but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> 	MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
> 
> 	Nothing in this license shall be interpreted to mean that any
> 	module designed to work with or distributed with this program
> 	must be distributed under this license. In no way shall anything
> 	in this license be interpreted to limit the licenses under which
> 	modules designed for this program may be published. In no way
> 	shall any module's licensing terms or interaction with any other
> 	module or this program be interpreted to alter or negate the
> 	terms of this license or the license terms of any other module.

This sounds good.
How, exactly, should we approach this?  Create a new license that contains
the above verbage, which would be a derivative of the QPL, or is that
overkill?  I could simply put the third paragraph in the header of each
distributed file - would that be enough?
 From a grander standpoint, does the open source community need another
license (such as I'm trying to accomplish)?  If so, would it be worthwhile
to create the license anyway, so others have it available as well?  Or am
I still in the land of overkill?
Looking for advice on how to proceed here :)

And again, thanks to both John and David for their valuable input!

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com

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