Question regarding a new local license approach

[Walter van Holst]

Apologies for answering this question in a separate e-mail.

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 04:15:16 -0500, Chuck Swiger <chuck at codefab.com> wrote:

> Regardless of whether you write a "universal license" or one specific
> to your country's legal code, please also consider how your license
> would interact with code licensed under commonly used licenses like the
> GPL, MPL, BSD, & MIT licenses.
> 
> Can you do something so that if (for example) someone in your country
> adopts a BSD-licensed program and relicenses it using your license, the
> end result is pleasing and conformant with Australian law?

I think you can come up with a local license that allows licensee to
relicense it the software under, for example the GPL. I also believe
that I can come up with a license that is valid under Dutch law and
will be equivalent to the GPL and therefore relicensing GPL-software
under such a local license would be within the rights granted by the
GPL. Would that be 'universal' enough to your tastes?

For that to happen, it would be very helpful to have a) the FSF agree
that the local license is equivalent to the GPL and b) having the OSI
be willing to certify it. I have been in touch with Eben Moglen
regarding a) and he has indicated to be willing to look into that
issue if we can come up with such a  license.

Oh, and BTW, similar things can be done for the MPL, BSD and Apache licenses.

Regards,

 Walter