[License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence

[Maxthon Chan]

How about this copyleft clause for 2BSDL or 3BSDL (that is, add this clause into the existing clauses of 2BSDL or 3BSDL to make it copyleft) with a rewritten clause 2 and a new clause 3 (3BSDL’s clause 3 get bumped to clause 4 in this case)

2. Redistributions in binary form of this work or any derivative work of this work must be accompanied with the corresponding, human-preferred source code.

3. Redistribution of any derivative work must be also licensed under the same license as this work.

> On Mar 31, 2015, at 06:24, Tim Makarios <tjm1983 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 2015-03-30 at 10:24 -0400, cowan at ccil.org wrote:
>> That's pretty much what the Sleepycat license does.  Here's a very lightly
>> edited version of its additional clause:
>> 
>>    Redistributions in any form must be accompanied by information
>>    on how to obtain complete source code for the licensed software
>>    and any accompanying software that uses the licensed software.
>>    The source code must either be included in the distribution
>>    or be available for no more than the cost of distribution
>>    plus a nominal fee, and must be freely redistributable under
>>    reasonable conditions. For an executable file, complete source
>>    code means the source code for all modules it contains.
>>    It does not include source code for modules or files that
>>    typically accompany the major components of the operating
>>    system on which the executable file runs.
> 
> I might have misunderstood it, but this seems like very weak copyleft to
> me.  The (presumably possibly modified) source code could be made
> "freely redistributable under reasonable conditions" that were
> themselves a permissive licence, allowing the next person to
> re-monopolize their own derivatives of the derivative work.  Or have I
> missed something?
> 
> How about this for a licence?
> 
> The creators of this work affirm that anyone who obtains a copy of this
> work is licensed to:
>  * make further copies and derivative works from their copy of the
>    work, and
>  * use and distribute their copies and derivative works,
> provided that all such derivative works are governed by this licence.
> 
> 50 words.  It doesn't require making the source code available, but
> recipients of binaries will always be free to make derivative works by
> reverse engineering the binaries.  It does make itself incompatible with
> other copyleft licences, though, which seems difficult to avoid in a
> very short, non-weak copyleft licence.  I'd be keen to be proven wrong
> on that point, though.
> 
> Tim
> <><
> 
> 
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