[License-discuss] AFL/OSL/NOSL 3.0

Tue Jan 19 02:17:21 UTC 2016

Hi Simon, I would have responded sooner but I went out to celebrate Martin Luther King day.

This is what it says on the OSI website about AFL 3.0. This summary is not particularly helpful, and the table below this notice on that page is also not very helpful to describe how or when to use the license.

Gives you a copyright and allows for a patent on the software so long as you include the original software, any of its copyrights or trademarks and a note saying that you modified it. Created by the same author as the Open Software License, this license is nearly identical but, unlike the Open Software License, not copyleft as it doesn't force derivative works to use the same license.

https://tldrlegal.com/license/academic-free-license-3.0-(afl), linked to by http://opensource.org/licenses/afl-3.0. 

But I thank you for noting the reference at the bottom of that page to the explanation I wrote of this license. I missed seeing that. It explains what the note at the top doesn't. 

As for the FSF's website, that's truly outrageous. Here's what it says:

The Academic Free License is a free software license, not copyleft, and incompatible with the GNU GPL. Recent versions contain contract clauses similar to the Open Software License <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#OSLRant> , and should be avoided for the same reasons.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html 

And they don't bother to include my own explanation of my licenses.

/Larry

From: Simon Phipps [mailto:webmink at opensource.org] 
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2016 12:39 PM
To: Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com>; license-discuss at opensource.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] AFL/OSL/NOSL 3.0

That page is linked from http://opensource.org/licenses/AFL-3.0 Larry (at the bottom) and no other narrative. What is the specific change you are requesting?

S.

On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 6:00 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com <mailto:lrosen at rosenlaw.com> > wrote:

Open Source friends,

I discovered in the past few days on other lists that there are several misleading descriptions of my AFL/OSL/NOSL 3.0 licenses on FSF and OSI websites. Neither site bothered to publish my own description of these licenses, and their own characterizations are incorrect.

Please see this: http://rosenlaw.com/OSL3.0-explained.htm.

I would appreciate it if FSF and OSI would copy this document to their own websites instead of inventing their own.

Best regards, /Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Wielaard [mailto:mark at klomp.org <mailto:mark at klomp.org> ]
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2016 12:32 AM
To: License submissions for OSI review <license-review at opensource.org <mailto:license-review at opensource.org> >
Subject: Re: [License-review] Approval: BSD + Patent License

On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 10:03:33AM -0800, Lawrence Rosen wrote:
> McCoy is proposing a BSD license plus patent license. It is an okay
> FOSS license. But AFL 3.0 did that very thing 10 years ago. The only
> reason for AFL 3.0 not being accepted generally for that same purpose
> is the FSF's complaint, "contains contract provisions." That kind of
> quasi-legal balderdash is directly relevant to what McCoy and others
> want to do.
>
> And if AFL 3.0 isn't satisfactory for some random reason, then use the
> Apache 2.0 license.

Sorry Larry, but these are impractical suggestions wrt reviewing the license submission and intent of the BSD + Patent License. The AFLv3 is GPL incompatible because it contains contract provisions requiring distributors to obtain the express assent of recipients to the license terms. The extra restrictions making ASLv2 incompatible with GPLv2 have already been discussed. Both are clearly documented cases of expressly incompatible licenses by the GPL license steward the FSF. I understand your desire to mention your disagreement with the license steward and discuss alternative legal interpretations of what it means to be compatible with the GPL then what might be generally accepted and used in practice. But it is offtopic and not a very constructive discussion in the context of this license submission, which doesn't contain any of those extra restrictions.

Cheers,

Mark
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Simon Phipps, Director, The Open Source Initiative
+44 238 098 7027 or +1 415 683 7660 :  <http://www.opensource.org> www.opensource.org

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