License Committee Report for September 2008

[Wilson, Andrew]

Lawrence Rosen wrote: 

> The scope of every open source license is so broad--including all
rights
> available under the copyright act--that there is probably never a need
for
> what you are now calling "additional permission." ["In addition to
being
> allowed to copy, modify and distribute my work worldwide, you can also
do
> this in Europe and you can smile while you do it."]

Would that this were true ... however, experience suggests it is not.
For example, OSI approved the wxWindows license as open source,
which is precisely LGPL plus an additional permission allowing 
static linking.

If (as is the case in wxWindows, or in GPLv3) a licensee always may
remove
additional permissions and revert to the underlying, OSI-approved
license, then I don't think additional permissions alone change the
open-sourceness of the augmented license.

Andy Wilson
Intel open source technology center