[License-discuss] Open Source Eventually License Development

[zooko]

Hi there, Fred Trotter:

Thanks for working on this topic and for citing my "Transitive Grace Period
Public Licence" [1, 2].

1. https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/COPYING.TGPPL.rst

2. https://tahoe-lafs.org/~zooko/tgppl.pdf

I have one objection to raise right at the beginning:

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 02:12:24AM -0700, fred trotter wrote:
> 
> First, no ransom license of any type should ever be OSI approved as an
> Open Source license or be FSF approved as a Free Software License.
> Ransom licenses are proprietary until they are Open Source or
> Free/Libre.

Could we please refrain from using that word "ransom" for this?

Okay, but that wasn't my objection. My objection is that the above is confusing
software with licence, which could lead to people mistakenly thinking that
software is not Free (Libre) and Open Source when it is. It could even lead
people to mistakenly think that a Free (Libre) and Open Source licence is not
Free and Open.

Here's an example:

Apache Hadoop is licensed to the public under the "Apache License 2.0". Apache
Hadoop is Free and Open software. The "Apache License 2.0" is an Open Source
licence. "EMC Greenplum HD Enterprise Edition" (which I just learned about from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadoop) is proprietary, closed-source, non-Free
software. "EMC Greenplum HD Enterprise Edition" is a derived work of Apache
Hadoop.

Here's another example:

Tahoe-LAFS is licensed to the public under the "Transitive Grace Period Public
Licence 1.0" [*]. Tahoe-LAFS is Free and Open software. The "Transitive Grace
Period Public Licence" is an Open Source licence. "LeastAuthority.com's Cloud
Storage Plugins" [3] are non-Free software. "LeastAuthority.com's Cloud Storage
Plugins" are a derived work of Tahoe-LAFS.

[*] Or under the GPL at your option.

[3] https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2013-July/008610.html

Regards,

Zooko