For Approval: Non-Profit OSL 3.0

[Lawrence Rosen]

> > You need to fix up s. 16, though, to refer to the NOSL, or in the
> > alternative to both NOSL and OSL.
> 
> Nice catch, agreed.

As an author of licenses, I'm not interested in protecting the "non-profit"
part of the name. What's important (to me at least) is the "OSL" name for
license(s), which is dealt with by the existing s. 16 and which covers the
OSL part "Non-Profit OSL 3.0" well enough as written. This new license name
obviously has my approval. :-) 

> What value does the IETF gain from making the assertion in 17(a) and
> insisting that people who are not non-profit organizations must
> relicense under the OSL, instead?

I'll try to answer that question rather than put the burden on IETF's
attorney to do so. That requirement was made because (in my opinion) open
source customers should expect their *commercial* (i.e., for-profit)
software suppliers to offer a warranty of provenance and to accept liability
for direct damages. 

This is not about what IETF gains by that requirement, but what open source
customers gain by being able to rely on the diligence and reliability of the
*commercial* suppliers of their OSL-licensed open source software. IETF
didn't ask for the requirement; I put it there and IETF doesn't mind.

Those warranty and liability provisions have been in OSL 3.0 since the
beginning (and they are in many other licenses as well!). Weakening them in
NOSL 3.0 for non-profit distributors--and requiring that they be restored
for for-profit distributors--obviously doesn't affect whether the new
license conforms to the OSD. 

/Larry

P.S. There are long threads in the OSI archives about OSL 3.0. Rather than
repeat discussions here about the warranty of provenance and limitations of
liability, you might want to look in the archives first. I explained the
warranty of provenance and liability obligations in my article, "Allocation
of the Risk," which I published several years ago in Linux Journal
(http://rosenlaw.com/lj15.htm). I also described the OSL warranty and
liability provisions in some detail in Chapter 9 (on pages 198-206) of my
book (http://rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm). 
 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chuck Swiger [mailto:chuck at codefab.com]
> Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 5:02 PM
> To: John Cowan
> Cc: Lawrence Rosen; 'License Discuss'; 'Contreras, Jorge'
> Subject: Re: For Approval: Non-Profit OSL 3.0
> 
> On Aug 6, 2007, at 3:51 PM, John Cowan wrote:
> > Lawrence Rosen scripsit:
> >> Since the new Non-Profit OSL 3.0 does not otherwise affect any
> >> part of the
> >> open source bargain, it should be approved for the same reasons
> >> that the
> >> original OSL 3.0 license was approved.
> >
> > +1
> 
> Seconded, but with a caveat I'll detail below.
> 
> > You need to fix up s. 16, though, to refer to the NOSL, or in the
> > alternative to both NOSL and OSL.
> 
> Nice catch, agreed.
> 
> If there were more significant differences between the OSL and the
> NOSL, I would be concerned by the requirement in 17(d) for people who
> redistribute the software released by the IETF under the NOSL to use
> the OSL, unless they can claim 17(a).  Arguably, this encroaches upon
> OSD #7 and perhaps OSD #5.
> 
> What value does the IETF gain from making the assertion in 17(a) and
> insisting that people who are not non-profit organizations must
> relicense under the OSL, instead?
> 
> --
> -Chuck