[License-discuss] OSI definition

[Gil Yehuda]

I’m wondering if this license is OSD compliant by accident. Re-read the
initial question on this thread and you’ll see that this license does not
say what the author seems to wish it did.

Meaning: I don’t see how this license (as written) prevents employees at a
Big Company from using the code to build software that provides profit to
the shareholders. The restrictions (as written and explained to this list)
only apply to *legal entities with shareholders and employees,* but does
not apply to people. As explained explicitly, any group of people can use
code licensed under Leftcopy for any endeavor. A team of engineers at any
company can use the code under the terms of the license, for anything they
please. They can make a product for profit. Only the company itself can’t
use the code.

This license seems to be snagged by the anthropomorphism we tend to use
when we talk about companies. We say things like “Google decided to...”
when in fact a _person_ employed there, with the authority granted by
_another person,_ decided something. This license makes it clear that all
people can use the code. Employees are people. Companies are legal
entities, they don’t use code, they don’t eat, they don’t decide things.
They are concepts. Silly? Maybe, but that’s what the question we were posed
asks us to find in the text.

Even the last line of the license only asks to acknowledge that the work
was not designed, licensed or intended for use by any Big Company — but
engineers employed there can still use the code.

I’m not suggesting the OSI consider this license as an open source
candidate. I’m suggesting that if employees at Big Companies encounter code
licensed under this license, they can be glad they are people, and people
get to use this code for whatever they wish.

Gil Yehuda

On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 1:02 PM Johnny A. Solbu <johnny at solbu.net> wrote:

> On Monday 18 January 2021 02:23, Kevin P. Fleming wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 8:13 PM Tenorgil <tenorgil at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Can you clarify this phrase
> > >
> > > You can basically do whatever you want, as long as you are not a
> company with shareholders employing lots of people
> > >
> > > What does it mean if “you” (presumably a person) is not a company (a
> legal concept). If all the employees of a company can use the code, what
> does it mean that the company can’t?
> >
> > It's not relevant. The employees are free to 'use the code' in their
> > individual capacities, but the company cannot. For example the company
> > cannot 'use the code' on its internal computer systems, which are
> > owned by the company and not the employees. Also the company cannot
> > 'use the code' in its products, which are products of the company and
> > not its employees. Those employees, when acting on behalf of the
> > company (doing their jobs) are agents of the company, not individuals,
> > and the license terms apply to the company.
>
> That right there makes it incompatible with the Open Source Definition.
> It discriminates against fields of endeavor.
>
> I remember the now 20 year old documentary «Revolution OS». Bruce Perens
> who co-founced «The Open Source Initiative» says in the documentary that
> the example he use on section 5, is that you can't stop an abortion clinic
> or an anti-abortion activist from using the software.
>
> On section 6 Bruce says (in the documentary) that it has to be useable in
> a business as well as in a school.
>
> The LeftCopy license violates this, and is therefore Not an Open Source
> licence.
> My Not So Humble opinon is that this restriction makes any software using
> this license proprietary, and should be avoided.
>
> --
> Johnny A. Solbu
> web site,   https://www.solbu.net
> PGP key ID: 0x4F5AD64DFA687324
> _______________________________________________
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