Hoping to find a compliant alternative to the AGPL

[John.Cowan]

Gregor Richards scripsit:

> The main issue being brought up on debian-legal is "the dissident test",
> which seems like it would apply to the OSD as well.  I'm not entirely
> convinced that the dissident test fails with this.  Any opinions are
> greatly appreciated.

<flame>The debian-legal "tests" are the products of insane
over-interpretation.  It's easy to see, for example, that the GNU GPL
fails the Tentacles of Evil test: since no contract is formed between
licensor and licensee (at least in common-law countries), the licensor
can revoke it with notice at any time, and the licensee is then on the
slippery ground of promissory estoppel -- which will surely not save
anyone who is not already a licensee.

The description of the Dissident test is equally absurd: the case given
in the draft DFSG FAQ specifies someone who does not wish to reveal
his modifications, but is perfectly all right with revealing them to
people he sends the binary to.  That is not even remotely plausible
in the Real World: if merely revealing the modifications is dangerous,
then GNU GPLed software is effectively unfree.

Any definition of free software that excludes GPLed software is
broken.</flame>

>   4. If you provide to a person or persons a means of accessing an
> interactive interface to the Program which does not include access to
> the source code, object code or executable, you must also provide to
> that person or those persons (henceforth called "Indirect Users") access
> to the complete source code of the Program in one of the following ways:
> 
>     a) Cause the Program to provide its source code in said interactive
>     interface upon the request of an Indirect User; or,
> 
>     b) Make a means of immediate retrieval of the Program's source code
>     easily visible to all Indirect Users; or,
> 
>     c) Provide a written offer, easily visible to all Indirect Users and
>     valid for at least three years, to give to any third party, for a
>     charge no more than your cost of physically performing source
>     distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding
>     source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2
>     above on a medium customarily used for software interchange.

I think this is pretty good.

-- 
The first thing you learn in a lawin' family	John Cowan
is that there ain't no definite answers		jcowan at reutershealth.com
to anything.  --Calpurnia in To Kill A Mockingbird