[License-discuss] Extending copyleft and out-of-the-box compliance

[Lawrence Rosen]

I'm tired of everyone forgetting OSL 3.0, as if AGPL is the only license
worth considering. Licensing bigots! /Larry


-----Original Message-----
From: License-discuss <license-discuss-bounces at lists.opensource.org> On
Behalf Of Florian Weimer
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2020 1:19 PM
To: license-discuss at lists.opensource.org
Subject: [License-discuss] Extending copyleft and out-of-the-box compliance

I was a bit surprised to learn that the CAL was accepted, given that its
copyleft extensions have the same major problem as the AGPL.

With that I do not mean the predominant use of the AGPL as a GPL variant for
open-core business models, but that the AGPL requires to provide source code
access over the network even if the software itself does not provide a means
for accessing it.

Curiously, the GPL has already dealt with a similar issue.  Version 1 says
this:

    c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when
    run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use
    in the simplest and most usual way, to print or display an
    announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice
    that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a
    warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these
    conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this General
    Public License.

This was changed in version 2:

    c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
    when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
    interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
    announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
    notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
    a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
    these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
    License.  (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
    does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
    the Program is not required to print an announcement.)

Note the new exception.  I think this makes a lot of sense because it
ensures that anyone can make unrelated modifications to the program and
distribute them, without adding the startup notification first.
Some GPL programs have such notifications (Emacs, GDB, Guile), but a lot do
not or only print a subset of the notifications (ed, jshell, CLISP, GCL,
Maxima etc.).

Unfortunately, this exception was not carried over into the AGPL.  As a
result, use of most programs licensed under the AGPL become non-compliant
once local modifications are made because the source code access requirement
is not met.  In most cases, I don't think this is because the party who made
the modification wants to keep the modifications secret, but rather due to
oversight or the cumbersome nature of manual source code publishing (the
usual reasons for copyleft non-compliance).  Hence the need for out-of-the
box compliance.

I think the change from GPL version 1 to GPL version 2 shows one way to
ensure that: Copyleft extensions should only be in force if the work
contains built-in mechanisms that enable automatic compliance with such
extensions.  This means that activating these extensions needs a conscious
decision by the authors, and also a clarification of the scope of the
extension and its concrete impact on use.

What do you think?  Could that be adopted as an informal guidance for future
license reviews?

One problem is that a feature that cannot be legally removed again once it
has been added looks a lot like DRM.  But I think it would still be
preferable to have feature-conditional license elements rather than the same
elements unconditionally, potentially without a compliance mechanism built
into the work.

_______________________________________________
The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not
necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Official statements by the
Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address.

License-discuss mailing list
License-discuss at lists.opensource.org
http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensourc
e.org