RPL 1.5 discussion

[Philippe Verdy]

Matthew Flaschen [mailto:matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu] wrote:
> Now that I have considered the license, I have several comments.  Most
> importantly, I object to the attribution clause in its current form.  It
> has the same issues as earlier drafts of CPAL, but without the
> compromises (e.g. only on one screen, 10 words, etc.) OSI agreed to.  I
> would be reluctant to support any more attribution licenses until CPAL
> has been out for a while (say a year).

I also don't like long required attribution notices. However there are some
conditions where this is unavoidable, not because of the licence itself but
about legal requirements for correct attribution of authors (that have
unconditional, mandatory, exclusive, non transferable and irrevocable rights
and obligations in many countries, notably those with a legal system based
on Civil Code, instead of Common Law.)

So any licence should tolerate these mandatory legal attributions, because
not accepting them would make the licence completely invalid and not
enforceable in many countries (where the legality of publications in the
"public domain", without a protected signature, i.e. anonymously, is also
highly questionable, and the destruction of these identifiable signatures is
illegal).