[License-discuss] Is the OBM License OSD compatible?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Gervase Markham (gerv at mozilla.org):

> That page says:
> 
> "OBM is an Free and Open Source messaging and collaboration software,
> distributed under the GNU Affero GPL v3 License terms, with Additional
> Terms pursuant to Section 7 of said license."
> 
> Which is good, because nothing other than Section 7 allows them to add
> additional terms of any sort to the license (see section 10).
> 
> Section 7 says:
> 
> "When you convey a copy of a covered work, you may at your option remove
> any additional permissions from that copy, or from any part of it."
> 
> So if you are concerned about the OSD-compliance of the additional
> terms, you can simply remove them when you redistribute it. Problem solved.

Would that it were so.  Lingora characterise their additions near the top as
'Additional Terms pursuant to Section 7 of said license', and clearly
intend this to refer _not_ to additional permissions, but rather to 
this bit slightly further on, in 7b):

  Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, for material you
  add to a covered work, you may (if authorized by the copyright holders
  of that material) supplement the terms of this License with terms:
  [...]
  b) Requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or
  author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal 
  Notices displayed by works containing it;

> You do need to obey section 5 about Appropriate Legal Notices. However,
> Section 0 of the AGPL defines what can be considered an Appropriate
> Legal Notice; anything which Linagora attempts to define as such which
> does not meet that definition can be said not to be an Appropriate Legal
> Notice.

Indeed.  This is why I called it an abuse of the intent of section 7.

Were I hauled into court on copyright infringement for failure to comply
with the badgeware requirement, that is what I would argue, but like
other SaaS firms pulling this trick with GPLv3 and AGPLv3's 'Additional
Terms' clauses, they are trying to have their way through assertion
rather than adjudication.

-- 
Cheers,              "To me, it's a good idea to always carry two sacks of 
Rick Moen            something, when you walk around.  That way, if anybody 
rick at linuxmafia.com  says 'Hey, can you give me a hand?', you can say 'Sorry,
McQ! (4x80)          got these sacks.'"      -- Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy