[License-discuss] 3-clause BSD with additional clause forbidding key disclosure

[Lawrence Rosen]

> Could you however elaborate on why the additional restriction

> would not be OSD-compliant?

 

Why are you trying to "open source" your additional clause forbidding key
disclosure? It is hard for me to recognize such private and confidential
commercial transactions as open source.

 

Already some distributors commercially license their own software
applications along with private usage keys. That combination of software+key
is not itself open source software, regardless of whether source code is
made available to the software itself. But it is perfectly typical and
allowed as a commercial transaction.

 

NEVERTHELESS, the *open source components* in those commercial software
applications remain open source regardless of the overall commercial license
or the private usage keys. It is appropriate (actually *required*) that
commercial distributors provide the names, licenses, and (usually) the
source code of those open source components even if the private usage keys
are unpublished. I believe that a separate commercial license forbidding key
disclosure is a separate commercial transaction that has no effect on the
*open source components*. Those remain free regardless of the usage
restrictions on the commercial amalgamation. See OSD #7:

 

7. Distribution of License

The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is
redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by
those parties.

 

BSD by itself does that. Your addition does not.

 

/Larry

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Zluty Sysel [mailto:zluty.sysel at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 5, 2015 5:16 AM
To: license-discuss at opensource.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] 3-clause BSD with additional clause
forbidding key disclosure

 

Hi there,

 

On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 12:27 PM, Simon Phipps <
<mailto:webmink at opensource.org> webmink at opensource.org> wrote:

> 

> 

> On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 12:24 PM, Zluty Sysel <
<mailto:zluty.sysel at gmail.com> zluty.sysel at gmail.com> wrote:

>> 

>> 

>> The issue however is that there is a certain reluctance not to 

>> include this in the source code license, since one of the .c files 

>> contains a very distinct placeholder (set to NULL) for the Private 

>> Key in it. The clause in the license would serve as a reminder that 

>> those Private Keys (which sometimes are shared across all employees 

>> of a single

>> company) are not redistributable even when the source code contains 

>> one (albeit a NULL development one). Since Private Keys are 

>> distributed in a fashion that makes it difficult for them to be 

>> attached to a license, the company wants to include this in each 

>> source code file so that users do not inadvertently commit to public 

>> repos with the Private Key set.

> 

> 

> Surely this is a matter to handle via a 1:1 contract with your 

> customer?  I have doubts that the additional restriction you are 

> proposing is OSD-compliant.

 

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, and they do have a contract with each customer that receives the
Private Key, along with the source code that goes with it.

Could you however elaborate on why the additional restriction would not be
OSD-compliant? Do you think it could be reworded so that it does become
compliant?

 

Thanks,

 

Zluty

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