[License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Wrapping OSI licenses (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US)]

> ________________________________________
> From: Thorsten Glaser [tg at mirbsd.de]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2018 2:10 PM
> To: Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US)
> Cc: Tom Bereknyei; license-discuss at lists.opensource.org
> Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Wrapping OSI licenses (UNCLASSIFIED)
> 
> Hello Karan,
> 
> >However, it creates an unlevel playing field; the same code has
> >different protections depending on where it is in the world. In the
> >US, the license may be considered to be null and void because the
> >copyright clauses can't be enforced, but in the rest of the world that
> >might not be true.
> 
> yes, that’s sad, but it’s the law. You can’t change that with licences.
> Licences come from the existence of copyright protection in the first
> place.
> 
> It’s the same whenever scope of protection differs between countries.
> Government works are one such thing; the other, much less rare, is
> when the author is dead for, say, 50 but not 70 years, or 70 but not 100
> (which AFAIK is the protection period in Mexico). Public domain dedica‐
> tions are another.
> 
> The best thing you can, AFAICT, do, is to say “if there’s copyright,
> we claim it, and here’s a licence; if there’s not, we don’t claim any”.
> 
> In fact, the thing you described which I quoted above is, combined with
> a liberal OSS licence such as MIT or MirOS, the best thing that one can
> hope for.

But isn't that what I'm aiming for?  The meta-license (or meta-agreement, or
whatever you want to call it), can have those terms in it.  Then the user 
would say something like "Apache 2.0 with meta-license foobar", and get
exactly the effect that we're talking about.

The main issue I have with this approach is that I think some licenses don't
allow you to change their terms (GPL?  Too busy to check at the moment).  That
would have to be addressed in some manner as well.

> Scope: I’m not discussing contractors, only PD government works, and I
> deliberately limit my comment to copyright-related rights, not patents.
> 
> bye,
> //mirabilos