[License-discuss] Thoughts on the subject of ethical licenses

[McCoy Smith]

>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: License-discuss <license-discuss-bounces at lists.opensource.org> On Behalf Of Pamela Chestek
>>Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2020 12:32 PM
>>To: license-discuss at lists.opensource.org
>>Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Thoughts on the subject of ethical licenses


>>On 3/10/2020 1:32 PM, Russell McOrmond wrote:
>>> "I think the fundamental thing that bothers me the most about the OSD 
>>> 1.x is that it grants rights downstream, but doesn’t give the creators 
>>> any real rights. And that’s a major difference between open and 
>>> #EthicalSource — ethical source is about empowering creators."
>>> https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1234307401169408001
>
>>I was struck by this too. The reality is that, by virtue of the structure of copyright, creators (or more accurately authors) have ALL the rights and it's only through license that they give up some of those >>rights. An author is free to craft a license to whomever they choose on the terms they choose. So I didn't understand the argument.

Also, what's "OSD 1.x"?  Is this OSD # 1, or is this in reference to a supposed rewrite of the OSD (OSD 2.0?) that modifies OSD 5 & 6 to allow discrimination against "evil" users or uses?

I could easily take the passage above and change it to something totally antithetical to everyone's understanding of open source:  ""I think the fundamental thing that bothers me the most about the OSD 1.x is that it grants rights downstream, but doesn’t give the creators any real rights to charge money for others exercising the authors copyright rights to control reproduction, modification, and distribution. And that’s a major difference between open and #ProprietarySource — proprietary source is about empowering creators."

BTW: The ESD does have this concept baked into it, so it's not even that far-fetched:

ESD 7:  It encourages fair compensation. *The software project’s maintainers may, at their discretion, request remuneration in the form of* code contributions, *financial consideration,* or other forms of voluntary support from organizations that derive commercial value from the software.

https://ethicalsource.dev/definition/