[License-discuss] Why CAVO Recommends GPLv3

Fri Nov 14 16:06:10 UTC 2014

To: License-Discuss@  [This email is CC-BY.]

The California Association of Voting Officials (CAVO) asked me to help them
evaluate FOSS licenses for election software. Below is my article for the
CAVO newsletter. 

You can read the entire CAVO newsletter at
http://www.cavo-us.org/Newsletter/newsletter1.html. Please direct any
comments or questions or support to cavocontact at gmail.com
<mailto:cavocontact at gmail.com> . 

/Larry

**************************

"Why CAVO Recommends GPLv3" by Lawrence Rosen

There are many ways to distribute software. Valuable software nowadays is
usually distributed under a free and open source license ("FOSS" license, in
short), both because it is usually "free of cost" software but also "free of
restrictions" on copying, making changes, and redistributing that software.

There are various open source licenses to choose from. They are listed at
the www.opensource.org <http://www.opensource.org>  website. Unless a
license is listed at that website, most developers and potential customers
won't call it FOSS software. The OSET Foundation Public License ("OPL"), a
license recently proposed for an election software project, is not a FOSS
license. [1] 

FOSS licenses offer several distinct ways to give software away. 

Choosing among those licenses for software is not an arbitrary game of
darts. For open source election software that can be trusted and always
free, the choice of license is particularly important. That is why CAVO
recommends the General Public License version 3.0 ("GPLv3") as the best
license to use. This article gives several important reasons why.

*         Among the many FOSS licenses, GPLv3 is the most modern, widely
accepted, and best understood license available today. Its predecessor
license, GPLv2, is historically far and away the most used worldwide; GPLv3
is replacing it in the rate of license adoption for new FOSS software.

*         GPLv3 is a reciprocal license. Once a project or distributor
releases election software under the GPLv3, it will remain FOSS software in
perpetuity under the GPLv3 license. Modifications to that FOSS software will
also be distributed in perpetuity under the GPLv3. This guarantees that our
election software won't ever be taken under commercial covers and turned
into proprietary software with unacceptable lock-in and source code
restrictions that make voting untrustworthy.

*         The GPLv3 license promotes open and shared development efforts.
While it is possible to create excellent open source software under more
permissive FOSS licenses, those licenses allow commercial fragmentation of
the software. That isn't appropriate for widely used election software. 

*         The GPLv3 encourages trustworthy software. There is a law of
software development named in honor of Linus Torvalds stating that "given
enough eyeballs, all  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug> bugs are
shallow"; or more formally: "Given a large enough
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_test> beta-tester and co-
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmer> developer base, almost every
problem will be characterized quickly and the fix will be obvious to
someone." [2]  GPLv3 software projects invite eyeballs on all distributed
versions of the software to identify bugs and security issues; other
licenses don't always do that.

*         Although GPLv3 will specifically encourage FOSS development
practices for the election code base and its derivative works, that GPLv3
license is nevertheless compatible with successful commercial software and
support business as well. One need only refer to the robust Linux ecosystem
and its contribution to diverse commercial technology worldwide, whose basic
software is entirely under the GPLv2 and GPLv3 licenses. The GPL licenses
made that possible.

*         GPLv3 will encourage innovation because GPLv3 source code is open
to view and change. 

For these reasons, CAVO recommends that election software be distributed
under GPLv3. This will inevitably create a diverse, worldwide, and
enthusiastic community of software developers to create election systems we
can all trust.

Footnotes:

[1] The OSET Foundation claim on their website that their license is "an
open source software license" is simply untrue. They can try to make it so
by submitting their license to www.opensource.org
<http://www.opensource.org>  and following OSI's published license review
process. While I am merely an observer nowadays of that license review and
approval process, as former general counsel for OSI I am confident that
certain provisions in that license make it incompatible with the GPLv3
despite the assertion on OSET's own website that it is.
http://static.squarespace.com/static/528d46a2e4b059766439fa8b/t/53558db1e4b0
191d0dc6912c/1398115761233/OPL_FAQ_Apr14.pdf 

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus's_Law

Lawrence Rosen

Rosenlaw & Einschlag (www.rosenlaw.com <http://www.rosenlaw.com/> ) 

(C) 2014 Lawrence Rosen. Licensed under CC-BY 4.0
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/> . 

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