[License-discuss] TrueCrypt license (not OSI-approved; seeking history, context).

[Karl Fogel]

Tom Callaway <tcallawa at redhat.com> writes:
>(from 2008):
>http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/distributions/2008-October/000273.html
>http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/distributions/2008-October/000276.html
>
>[...]
>
>For what it is worth, I'm not sure the OSI should voluntarily spend any
>time or effort on the TrueCrypt license unless the TrueCrypt copyright
>holder brings it forward themselves with a willingness to address these
>issues in a serious and reasonable fashion.
>
>The fact that there are other FOSS implementations for TrueCrypt (most
>notably tc-play (https://github.com/bwalex/tc-play) minimizes the need
>to resolve these issues with the upstream, which is why Fedora stopped
>attempting to do so quite some years ago.

Thanks so much for the history, Tom; that thread is hugely educational.

The question for OSI, I think, is not just whether or not to spend time
on the license, but (if trying to address license issues doesn't work
out) do we ask them to stop describing it as "open source" if they're
not willing to license it under an open source license?

I'm not saying for sure that it is or isn't open source -- the point of
this thread is to gather information -- but the history you've provided
makes it clear there are areas of concern beyond even what I noticed
when I glanced over the license.

-Karl