[License-discuss] For Discussion: Cryptographic Autonomy License (CAL) Beta 2

[Roger Fujii]

On 8/13/2019 12:04 PM, Bruce Perens via License-discuss wrote:
> It looks like this is the main reason for objection:
>
>         /*No Withholding User Data*/
>
>         /Throughout any period in which You exercise any of the
>         permissions granted to You under this License, You must also
>         provide to any Recipient to whom you provide services via the
>         Work, a no-charge copy, provided in a commonly used electronic
>         form, of the Recipient’s User Data in your possession, to the
>         extent that such User Data is available to You for use in
>         conjunction with the Work. /
>
> [snip]
> The ownership of the data /distracts from the main issue,/ however, 
> which is that the license attempts to /encumber data which is 
> processed by the program./ This is a slippery slope which OSI should 
> not embark upon, it ends with licenses like Kyle's which attempt to 
> encumber all software processed by the program and force placement of 
> that software under an Open Source license.
>
Even more fundamentally than that is that this section does something 
that no open source license does (that I'm aware of anyway), which is to 
create an obligation just by running an /unmodified/ program.  While 
this (surprisingly) doesn't violate any OSD section explicitly, it 
violates a tenet of open source software - that the user can run 
*unmodified* versions without worrying about legal ramifications (well, 
copyright wise anyway). No good will come to opensource if company legal 
has to get involved just to run a binary.

> I submit that this language still runs awry of OSD#6, since a business 
> which sequesters customer data to its own advantage might be 
> obnoxious, but it's still a field of endeavor. And it runs awry of 
> OSD#9 to the extent that the data can be considered software.

I think the data part distracts from the actual issue.   For the sake of 
argument, replace "User Data" with "modified source to all open source 
You use" (this way, we keep it in the source code arena).   Would a 
license like this pass (making an obligation on something that isn't a 
derivative work)?

>
> I am the guy on your TV saying "Let's champion data rights as human 
> rights!" A substantial part of the human race have seen that IBM spot 
> by now, it runs in Europe and Asia besides North America. I believe in 
> data rights, but this license is not the way to achieve them.
>
+1

Roger Fujii


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