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

[Gil Yehuda]

One of the challenges the Ethical Source Movement will continue to face is
related to 'ethical' their *nom de net*. But it appears to be a distraction
for the issues being raised to this list. I urge people who care about
ethics to pursue ethical pursuits. The questions posed here, however, have
to do with labeling, interpretation, definitions, scope, and who decides
what to call things.

I'll elaborate and provide a tl;dr at the bottom. Skip if you wish...

Many people wish to publish their code under "source-available" licenses
that are almost like open source, but not all ways. These licenses are in
the marketplace today. Some vendors who back open source projects have
moved to mostly-open licenses (open to most, open for most things, etc.).
If you publish under the CC-BY-NC license, you restrict commercial
use. Similarly
when university projects are "provided to the public strictly for
educational and academic research purposes." ESM is one more example of
this category, where the specifics differ (and are in some flux).

Side distraction: There are important differences between
discriminating against a user vs. a use. e.g. can a commercial entity use
CC-BY-NC content in a non-commercial way? If a blogger has an ad unit on
their blog is their blog a vehicle of commerce? Great questions for the
lawyers etc. since some of these cases depend on jurisdiction, case law,
etc. That's not the question being posed here.

Side distraction: Does discriminating against companies imply that
companies are evil? Some people believe large companies are evil. Some
people believe governments are. Some believe all religions are. Some people
all but their own are. Why do people want discriminatory licenses? Maybe
it's homophily, maybe better business outcomes, maybe they're convinced it
could make the world a better place. That's not the question being posed
here.

Rather: when someone creates a project and seeks to use a source-available
license that operates similarly to open source, but includes user or usage
restrictions, what's a good name to give the license scheme? It's not Open
Source (by current definition), but it's something. Changing the Open
Source Definition would blur these together into one category, that seems
like it would cause more confusion with no upside.

Instead, we need a neutral name, and maybe a list that categorizes
different types of these source-available licenses. I'd start with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software There's a neutral
name and a list. And the process for improving this list open for people to
modify and clarify.

Then a working group can come up with a workflow:
1. Do you want some people to be restricted from benefiting from your code?
Select the restriction type below...
2. Do you want your project to be restricted to certain fields of
endeavors? Select the restrictions below...
3. If you don't wish to discriminate, select one of the Open Source
licenses below...
4. If you wish to uphold the 4 freedoms, select one of the Free Software
licenses below...

Then, independently, groups who create and promote discriminatory license
schemes can work with their communities and lawyers to address the many
side issues listed above. e.g. If an entity participates in commerce with a
government agency that violates human rights, but also has a division that
performs social good, does that division get to use my code? Good question
for that group to address. Each group can use whatever name they want for
their movement, restrict what they want, etc. But it would be most helpful
not to blur existing definitions or confuse consumers.

tl;dr: What about the classification "Source-available" is insufficient for
the Ethical Source movement such that changing the OSD is seen as a
benefit? Why not proceed developing and enhancing the Ethical Source
movement materials and work with the Source-available movement to refine
their categories such that Ethical Source is best understood as a
source-available scheme? I believe that's what it seeks to be.

Gil Yehuda: I help with external technology engagement



On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 11:24 AM John Cowan <cowan at ccil.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 10:17 AM Russell Nelson <nelson at crynwr.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/18/20 12:40 PM, John Cowan wrote:
>
> > Note that I am fully supportive of the position that there may be and
>> > are Open Source licenses, in the sense of meeting the OSD's terms,
>> > that are not OSI Certified (TM).
>>
>> Who decides that?
>>
>
> You, me, or anyone else.  Law students do a lot of exercises of the form
> "Here is a fact situation, here is a legal definition; does the situation
> meet the definition?"  That doesn't make them judges or juries, of course.
>
> That's also what we do on license-review: we say if we think a license is
> open source, and we can and do disagree.  Sorry to bring up King Charles's
> head again, but when I presented the MS-PL to that list, it was because I
> thought it was open source; I still think so, and indeed the Board
> eventually agreed with me, so that it became not merely open source but OSI
> Certified (tm).  But no part of the OSD involves the notion that a license
> cannot be open source if it is not certified.
>
>
>
> John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
> He played King Lear as though someone had played the ace.
>         --Eugene Field
>
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>
> http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
>
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