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

Mon Mar 30 12:17:18 UTC 2020

> Do you think an updated AAL could comply with the OSD?

I personally think so. I expect the next step in this process would be for
someone to find the original author of the AAL to discuss this option.

henrik

On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 2:38 PM Hillel Coren <hillelcoren at gmail.com> wrote:

> Understood, I think then we're in agreement then :)
>
> Do you think an updated AAL could comply with the OSD?
>
> On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 2:07 PM Kevin P. Fleming <kevin+osi at km6g.us>
> wrote:
>
>> I was responding to your more general question "Do you believe a
>> developer should have the option to share their code without fearing a
>> competitor will use their code against them?". That was not specific
>> to any attribution requirement or place of the attribution.
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 6:46 AM Hillel Coren <hillelcoren at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi Kevin,
>> >
>> > Adding an attribution (for example in the page footer) doesn't prevent
>> a business from reselling the app, it just makes it less likely they'll
>> want to.
>> >
>> > On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 1:16 PM Kevin P. Fleming <kevin+osi at km6g.us>
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> 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.
>> >> >> _______________________________________________
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