[License-discuss] SPDX License List v1.14 & OSI questions

[Karl Fogel]

Jilayne Lovejoy <jilayne.lovejoy at openlogic.com> writes:
>Indeed!  Thanks Karl, John, and Larry.  This is great.  I will take all
>this info, incorporate or update the SPDX License List as applicable and
>then send a revised version.  I think we will have cut the list of issues
>down considerably at that point!

Agreed!  Thanks, Jilayne.

-K

>On 4/30/12 4:38 PM, "Karl Fogel" <kfogel at red-bean.com> wrote:
>
>>John, wow.  Thank you so much for that incredibly helpful mail.  I'm not
>>going to have time to incorporate all this information into our site
>>between now and the next OSI board meeting (this Wednesday), but knowing
>>this is in the archives makes some upcoming tasks much less daunting!
>>
>>-K
>>
>>John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> writes:
>>>Karl Fogel scripsit:
>>>
>>>> I can find no record of approval of the Academic Free License prior to
>>>> 3.0.  As of 2006-10-31, we were linking to "/licenses/afl-3.0.php",
>>>> and now of course we link to http://opensource.org/licenses/AFL-3.0.
>>>
>>>http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://opensource.org/licenses/* is
>>>your friend.  Filtering for "afl" on the page shows that afl-1.1.php,
>>>afl-1.2.php, afl-2.0.php, afl-2.1.php all existed, so I think we can
>>>infer that they were approved.  No evidence for 1.0, though.
>>>
>>>>   > Was this [Apache 1.0] ever OSI-approved?
>>>>
>>>> For the reasons given above, I can't tell, sorry.  I can find Apache
>>>> 2.0, but not 1.0.
>>>
>>>The same search shows that 1.1 was approved, but again no evidence for
>>>1.0.
>>>
>>>> Regarding Apple Public Source License 1.0 (APSL-1.0) you ask:
>>>>
>>>>   > Was this ever OSI approved?  Note at top of fedora url says: This
>>>>   > license is non-free. At one point, it could be found at
>>>>   > http://www.opensource.apple.com/apsl/1.0.txt, but that link now
>>>>   > redirects to APSL 2.0. A copy of the license text has been taken
>>>>   > from archive.org's October 01, 2007 revision.
>>>
>>>The Archive shows that APSL 1.2 was approved.  Wikipedia claims that
>>>APSL 1.0 was also approved, but gives no authority for this statement.
>>>That also matches my recollections (there was a considerable fuss at the
>>>time, because it was OSI-approved but not FSF-free, the first of the new
>>>licenses with that property).
>>>
>>>> That's great, except s/commercial/proprietary/ :-(.
>>>
>>>When the Artistic 1.0 was written, the distinction was not well
>>>understood.  I don't think that's a problem.
>>>
>>>> Regarding old BSD 4-clause (or "original" BSD) you ask:
>>>>
>>>>    > Was this OSI approved?
>>>>
>>>> Again, I don't know.
>>>
>>>No evidence that it ever was, nor do I have any recollection of it.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Regarding the "CNRI Python GPL Compatible License Agreement"
>>>> (CNRI-Python-GPL-Compatible), you ask:
>>>>
>>>>    > not on OSI site, but was OSI approved??  Please clarify will need
>>>>    > link from OSI site once (if) updated
>>>
>>>No evidence for it.
>>>
>>>> Regarding GPL-1.0, you ask:
>>>>
>>>>    > was this ever OSI approved?
>>>>
>>>> Good question.  I'm not sure, but I doubt it, as by the time OSI was
>>>> formed, GPL 2.0 had been published for years already.  Thus 1.0 might
>>>> never have been considered.
>>>
>>>That agrees with my recollections.
>>>
>>>> Regarding GPL-2.0 (and sometimes GPL-3.0) "with Autoconf exception",
>>>> and "with Bison exception", and "with classpath exception", and "with
>>>> font exception", and "with GCC exception", you ask:
>>>>
>>>>   > if the underlying license is OSI approved, then is the exception
>>>>   > also approved?
>>>>
>>>> In my opinion, yes, and there's no need for a separate license
>>>> approval process.  If a license is approved, then that license + an
>>>> exception should be considered approved when the exception clearly
>>>> adds no restrictions or requirements for the licensee, as is the case
>>>> here.
>>>
>>>I agree.
>>>
>>>> Regarding GNU Library General Public License v2 only (LGPL-2.0) you
>>>> ask:
>>>>
>>>>    > Was this ever OSI approved?
>>>>
>>>> I don't know.  I suspect the answer to that one would not be so hard
>>>> to find, but I want to plough to the end of this spreadsheet right now
>>>> and get these responses posted.  I did a cursory search on the OSI
>>>> site and didn't find any evidence of approval.  Anyone here know about
>>>> LGPL-2.0?
>>>
>>>The differences between 2.0 and 2.1, other than the name (GNU Library
>>>vs. Lesser Public License) are entirely editorial.  I can provide a list
>>>of them for anyone who wants it.
>>>
>>>> Regarding OSL-2.0 and OSL-2.1, you asked:
>>>>
>>>>    > is this OSI approved? (versions 1.0 and 3.0 are, but this one not
>>>>    > listed anywhere on site)
>>>>
>>>> I don't know.  Anyone?  Bueller?
>>>
>>>OSL 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, and 2.1 are all on the Archive.  Since AFL and OSL
>>>were always developed together and submitted together, I think it's safe
>>>to assume that AFL 1.0 and OSL 1.2 were both approved, despite the lack
>>>of direct evidence.  See my .sig.
>>