Are implicit dual-licensing agreements inherently anti-open?

[Chuck Swiger]

John.Cowan wrote:
> Brian C scripsit:
>> But, in general, I can imagine such a license that would be
>> objectionable, say one that gave only U.S. citizens the right to make
>> proprietary versions or gave only men such a right, or etc (fill in an
>> arbitrary characteristic not related to the origin of the code.) These
>> would seem to pretty squarely violate OSD #5.
> 
> I believe that #5 is generally interpreted to mean that the license may
> grant additional rights to certain persons, as long as it grants the
> full Open Source rights to everyone.  So while such licenses are unfair,
> they are not unfree.  The obsolete APSL 1.0 was unfair in this sense.

Yes, I'd agree with this interpretation.  After all, the author of the software 
generally has significant additional rights on the original software beyond 
what the license grants to other people, by virtue of common law where that 
applies, having the right to release under a different license, etc.

So long as people can continue to modify and redistribute the software openly, 
asking people who want to make proprietary modifications to grant the original 
developer the right to reuse and redistribute such modifications for themselves 
is OK.  However, part of granting full Open Source rights to everyone means 
that the software has to be feasible for others to redistribute, even if the 
original developer disagrees or no longer exists.

-- 
-Chuck