Politics-Free Licence ;)

[Chuck Swiger]

On Jun 28, 2007, at 11:03 AM, Nicholas Cole wrote:
> My mistake - I shouldn't have introduced the jurisdiction point into
> this discussion.  I'd borrowed the idea Creative Commons licences, and
> I am aware of the (good) arguments against.  It's not really the point
> I'm interested in.

OK.  If you'd like to find a compromise, perhaps terms like the  
following would suit your preferences but avoid hard-coding a  
specific jurisdiction into the license:

  * 3. Users of this Software agree that any legal matters pertaining  
to the
  *    Software or this License acknowledge the right of the author 
(s) to select
  *    a local "court of appropriate jurisdiction" and have any such  
matters
  *    adjudicated under the laws of the author's country, state, or  
province.

> But I don't agree that the major point I'm talking about is a "corner
> case".  The FSF asserts that the GPL affect libraries (especially C
> libraries) in a particular way.  Not everyone agrees.

Lots of people have opinions; the ones which matter with respect to  
law come from a judge.  In the US, the seminal case for analyzing  
software copyright infringement was Computer Associates vs Altai, in  
which the circuit judge decided that:

"...in many instances it is virtually impossible to write a program  
to perform particular functions in a specific computing environment  
without employing standard techniques." 3 Nimmer s 13.03[F][3], at  
13-65. This is a result of the fact that a programmer's freedom of  
design choice is often circumscribed by extrinsic considerations such  
as (1) the mechanical specifications of the computer on which a  
particular program is intended to run; (2) compatibility requirements  
of other programs with which a program is designed to operate in  
conjunction; (3) computer manufacturers' design standards; (4)  
demands of the industry being serviced; and (5) widely accepted  
programming practices within the computer industry. Id. at 13-66-71.

Publicly published APIs generally cannot qualify or be used as  
grounds for software copyright infringement.

One cannot legitimately claim that a C program which (e.g.) calls  
printf() is a derivative work of GNU libc specifically, or  
Microsoft's Visual C++ libraries, or the original BSD-licensed libc  
written by Kernigahn and Richie, because the same program can be  
compiled against any of these standard C libraries without changes to  
the source code.

> I would like to be able to licence a python library that can be  
> used to create open
> source software but not proprietory software.  There is some doubt at
> least as to whether the GPL actually achieves this aim, and that is
> why I would like a licence that makes the point clearer.

See OSD #6.  Your license can require that people writing proprietary  
software must redistribute their source code if they redistribute  
your software or a derivative thereof, but you cannot prevent them  
from using your software with proprietary code if they do not  
redistribute the combination.

Not only are restrictions on use not permitted for open-source  
software, they typically are not allowed by law, regardless of what  
license terms you wish to assert (but this varies from country to  
country).

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck