OVPL and open ownership

[David Barrett]

Alex --

Alex Bligh wrote:
> 
> --On 23 July 2005 08:41 +0200 Chris Zumbrunn <chris at czv.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hmm, David, if you are willing to go this far then you are really moving
>> away from what the OVPL intents (I don't think making 3.3 optional will
>> be acceptable to Alex's client).
> 
> Correct (me, and David Ryan's, to be precise). I am still thinking about
> the BSD thing though.

Could you clarify what you're thinking are about "the BSD thing"?  My 
understanding of the idea was that developers submit contributions under 
the BSD license, thus enabling the ID (and everyone else) to use these 
contributions in a proprietary derivative.

Please forgive my befuddlement, but wouldn't this negate the entire 
value of the OVPL?

- At best, with no ill-will or explicit intent on the part of any 
contributor, this would gradually erode the unique value of the ID's 
privilege as the whole project would gradually tend toward BSD (ie, code 
converts from OVPL to BSD, but not back).

- At worst, a disgruntled developer could change every file (convert all 
tabs to spaces), call this a "contribution" and voila -- the entire 
codebase is irrevocably licensed under BSD.

If this is the case (and I hope my understanding is off) why would 
anyone buy a commercial license from the ID when they can just obtain it 
under BSD at any time?  (Making BSD contributions optional would help 
the best case, but would have no effect on the worst case.)


So again, I hope I'm just misunderstanding the intent of the BSD idea. 
But if the above is accurate, then it's far more extreme than what I'm 
proposing.  If we make section 3.3 opt-out, then:

- At best, with no ill-will or explicit intent on the part of any 
contributor, all contributions are made with 3.3 intact, and the ID's 
unique privilege is preserved.

- At worst, a disgruntled developer could relicense the entire codebase 
without 3.3.

Because the section that mandates redistribution of source code (3.1, 
ie, the "copyleft clause") is always kept intact, even in the worst case 
scenario nobody has the right to distribute proprietary versions but the 
ID.  In other words, the commercial value of the ID's exclusive right 
remains strong, even in the worst case.

(Granted, the ID's privilege is weakened slightly by making 3.3 opt-out 
-- he can't redistribute contributions against the community's will. 
But as some have persuasively argued, this privilege might be overly 
strong and in conflict with open source principles.)

Could you please fact-check my above analysis and clarify where I'm off?

-david