[License-discuss] Strong and weak copyleft

[Lawrence Rosen]

Jim Jagielski wrote:
> I would even question whether Apache and CCO are really "copyleft" in any
way... :)

If we're going to invent a distinction between strong and weak, let's make
it a thorough one. :-)

As for Apache, it includes conditions regarding patent defense and notices
that are tied directly to the copyright grant. That's "VERY WEAK" but more
than CC0.

As for CC0, I can't think of a better example of "ULTRA-WEAK" given that
we're obviously making up the terms as we go. I was initially going to
reference CC-BY, but given Apache's reluctance to allow that license I
wasn't sure which one was "VERY" and which was "ULTRA". Or why, if the CC-BY
license has nothing to do with copyleft, Apache doesn't like it. Silliness!

We're inventing these distinctions merely to prevent all these various FOSS
works from being combined into aggregates without copyleft worry. This is a
waste of great software opportunity.

/Larry

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Jagielski [mailto:jim at jimjag.com] 
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2015 6:03 AM
To: lrosen at rosenlaw.com; license-discuss at opensource.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Strong and weak copyleft

I would even question whether Apache and CCO are really "copyleft" in any
way... :)

> On Apr 9, 2015, at 4:35 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com> wrote:
> 
> Maybe we can summarize so far:
> 
> ULTRA-STRONG		(AGPL)
> STRONG		(GPL)
> MORE THAN WEAK	(LGPL)
> ALMOST WEAK		(EPL)
> WEAK			(MPL)
> VERY WEAK		(APACHE)
> ULTRA-WEAK		(CC0)
> 
> This rather simple scale is not reflected in copyright law or any 
> relevant cases. It is not part of the Free Software Guidelines or the 
> Open Source Definition. It bears no resemblance whatsoever to the 
> definition of "derivative work." It is based here in this thread on 
> obscure quotes from various websites or opinions about "license 
> author's intent" without quoting the actual provisions of the licenses
that enable these vague distinctions.
> 
> This is one of the issues raised by the VMware complaint in Germany, 
> and we're expecting a court to make a decision about how strong the 
> GPL is. This email thread is still not very helpful.
> 
> /Larry
> 
> _______________________________________________
> License-discuss mailing list
> License-discuss at opensource.org
> http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discus
> s