[License-discuss] Thoughts on AAL and OSS vs FOSS

[Kevin P. Fleming]

Developers do have that option, but that option is not compliant with
the OSD (since that is explicitly discrimination against a specific
field of endeavor), and thus any license which provides that feature
is not OSD-compliant. The feature you are asking for is the same core
feature of the Commons Clause, the SSPL, and all of the other licenses
which attempt to protect the code's authors by disallowing other
group(s) from selling or hosting the software.

On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 2:54 AM Hillel Coren <hillelcoren at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks for your email! Can we try approaching it from a different perspective...
>
> Do you believe a developer should have the option to share their code without fearing a competitor will use their code against them?
>
> This is from the FAQ on opensource.org: "But depending on the license, you probably can't stop your customers from selling it in the same manner as you."
>
> I see the AAL as a good choice here, is there another license you would recommend?
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 11:55 PM Lukas Atkinson <opensource at lukasatkinson.de> wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 at 20:41, Syed Arsalan Hussain Shah wrote:
>>>
>>> Regarding ALL
>>>
>>> Josh claims that there is no repository on github https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/2020-March/021667.html
>>>
>>> But the https://github.com/search?q=attribution+assurance+license&type=Code gives me so many respostiores and I beleive AAL is widely used License.
>>
>>
>> Amazingly, most AAL uses I see on Github have silently modified the license to remove the GPG requirement (which nearly no one complies with anyway? [1]). And most of the modified AALs seem to be in old forks of InvoiceNinja software or Attendize? Neither is the license particularly widely used, nor are many people using the license as currently approved.
>>
>> My guess is that at most 100 primary authors on Github use the license, as based on a query [2] looking only at license files, excluding one prolific author, three frequently forked projects, and excluding the keyword “Affero” to detect license databases. Libraries.io lists ~250 packages using the AAL [3], but there seem to be severe data quality issues.
>>
>> [1]: https://github.com/search?q=%22attribution+assurance+license%22+%22BEGIN+PGP+SIGNED+MESSAGE%22&type=Code
>> [2]:
>> https://github.com/search?q=%22attribution+assurance+license%22+filename%3ALICENSE+NOT+Attendize+NOT+%22Hillel+Coren%22+NOT+clipbucket+NOT+craterapp+NOT+Affero&type=Code
>> [3]: https://libraries.io/licenses/AAL
>>
>>>
>>> > I have to add, I find it pretty ironic that your own site uses an attribution based license, the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License :)
>>
>>
>> The problem isn't attribution – nearly every open source license requires some copyright-like attribution notices to be shown. If you want a license that handles attributions very well and fairly, consider Apache 2.0 with its NOTICE file mechanism.
>> The problem is that the AAL perverts the idea of reasonable attribution into a problematic requirement to carry advertising-like attributions in a prominently visible place.
>>
>> Attribution means different things in different licenses.
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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.opensource.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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.opensource.org