Are implicit dual-licensing agreements inherently anti-open?

[Alex Bligh]

Andrew,

--On 14 July 2005 09:40 -0700 "Wilson, Andrew" <andrew.wilson at intel.com> 
wrote:

>
> Alex Bligh wrote:
>
>>> To my way of thinking, if a negotiation is required to create a valid
>>> derivative
>>> of two works which are covered by the same license, then said
>>> license is not really open source.
>>
>> Well that applies to MPL, CDDL etc. too.
>
> Well, no, it doesn't.  I do not need to conduct a negotiation with
> IBM to create a version which merges code I originated into a
> variant of Eclipse.  No-negotiation-required is a hallmark of
> open source-ness, which your OVPL fails.

I think you do. This is because the question "who is the Initial
Developer" remains unanswered. I accept that in practice the
"who is the initial developer" question matters less in (say)
the CDDL, but it still matters. For instance, if there are two
separate initial developers, one could restrict the license to
version 1.0 of the CDDL, and another could not (within the terms
of the existing CDDL).

> Not everything *has* to be open source.  There is a place
> in the wide, wide world of software licensing for JCP-like
> systems.  However, you are misguided in trying to insist
> that OVPL is an open source license.  It's not.

Well I beg to differ. I am using the OSI definition of open source.
I do not believe the OVPL violates the OSD (if so, why is the QPL
approves). You haven't pointed out which OSD criterion it breaks,
you have invented another (quite possibly useful) criterion, and
said it breaks that.

This all comes down to "what to you mean by open source?" I quite
accept you may mean something different than "OSD compliant". However,
that's the definition I'm using.

I also am quite happy to accept some licenses are more open than others.
We've been pretty clear that the OVPL is a "compromise" license. However,
I think it still conforms to the OSD.

Alex