Adaptive Public License review

[jcowan at reutershealth.com]

Well, I have finally plowed through all nineteen pages of the Adaptive
Public License, and here are my comments on it.

This is a semi-reciprocal license like the MPL:  you must share changes
by issuing derivative works under the APL, but APL works can be embedded
into a Larger Work (capitalized terms are defined in the APL) issued
under any license.

This is a family of licenses, with the following optional features:

1) The Original Contributor can choose to license patents (in which
case all Subsequent Contributors must also); by default, patents are
not licensed.

2) The Original Contributor (but not Subsequent Contributors) can require
an attribution to be displayed in a splash-screen or similarly.

3) The APL requires publication of changes, but not if they are used only
internally and not distributed to Third Parties.  The Original Contributor
gets to choose the definition of Third Parties from five given choices;
by default, the broadest definition is used (thus maximally restricting
what counts as internal deployment).

SHOW-STOPPER:

Though the APL is MPL-ish in nature, it has a few provisions modeled after
the GPL, but intensified in such a way that I believe they violate OSD #1.
In particular, Section 3.2 requires that any distribution of Executable
code charge no more than the distribution cost.  This means that binary
packages of the APLed work can't be put on CD-ROMs that are sold above
cost, as most distro makers do.  We have held in the past that this sort
of thing makes a license not open source.

Section 3.3(b) makes the same requirement, but only in respect of source
code distributed separately from Executable code.  The GPL also makes
this restriction, and it is a reasonable one: it prevents people from
freely distributing the Executable form and holding the source for ransom.
(This could only happen in practice in the case of a Subsequent Work.)

LESSER POINTS:

The license should make clear that CD and DVD distribution count as
Electronic Distribution, though they are not performed over a wire.

The requirement to make the source of Subsequent Works available for
three full years in all cases except internal deployment is burdensome.

CONCLUSION:

If the offending language in Section 3.2 is removed, the AFL should be
passed as an open source license.

-- 
"By Elbereth and Luthien the Fair, you shall    jcowan at reutershealth.com
have neither the Ring nor me!"  --Frodo         http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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