[License-discuss] How can we as a community help empower authors outside license agreements?

[Pamela Chestek]

On 3/15/2020 8:19 PM, Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:
>
>> On Mar 15, 2020, at 7:07 PM, Russell Nelson <nelson at crynwr.com
>> <mailto:nelson at crynwr.com>> wrote:
>>
>>  Ethical software is by definition not open source. 
>
> Can you point to any specific points in the definition of Ethical Open
> Source that conflicts with the OSD? (I’m not talking about ELOS.)
>
> https://ethicalsource.dev/definition/
>
>
The ESD is orthogonal in many respects. It talks about aspects that are
exterior to the software, e.g., having a Code of Conduct, deleting user
data on request, and requesting voluntary payment. The OSD describes
attributes of the software itself.

As to those aspects of the ESD that are about the attributes of
software, whether a license will comply with both is going to depend on
what the actual license itself says. As an example, a license could
still comply with ESD 7 by not asking for royalty payments (since ESD 7
is voluntary) and it would also meet the OSD 1, but if a license did ask
for royalty payments then it would not meet OSD 1. So it's not possible
to generalize and say that in all cases a license will necessarily meet
both standards or that one standard is a superset of the other.

Are ESD 4 and 5 internally inconsistent with ESD 1? It depends on what
you mean by "not prohibit[ng] modification [and] derivative works ..."
ESD 4 and 5 do prohibit certain kinds of modifications, i.e., those that
would impair accessibility or not prioritize user safety. I would say
these kinds of limitation is not "in the general spirit" of open source
distribution but it would be a case-by-case evaluation based on how that
limitation was included in the license. If a license was submitted that
said something like "you must include text-to-speech functionality in
you modifications," I would say that limitations would be a violation of
OSD 3 as historically interpreted. If you said "you may not modify this
software to limit a visually impaired user's access," that would be a
violation of OSD 5 because it discriminates based on visual acuity.

Pam

Pamela S. Chestek
Chestek Legal
PO Box 2492
Raleigh, NC 27602
919-800-8033
pamela at chesteklegal.com
www.chesteklegal.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20200316/d79136e4/attachment-0001.html>