[License-discuss] License-discuss Digest, Vol 133, Issue 12

Sat Feb 10 22:47:33 UTC 2024

Thanks all for your input -

I'm finding it quite challenging to follow the conversations and determine who is responding to whom. Is there any way for me to access the forum board directly, or am I limited to reading the discussions through email notifications only?

Respectfully,

Daniel Mihai
Founder and CTO

Mobile: +353 (0) 87 450 8112
E-mail: daniel at anuinitiative.org
Web-site: https://anuinitiative.org

Let’s take the initiative!

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Sent: Thursday, February 8, 2024 12:00 PM
To: license-discuss at lists.opensource.org
Subject: License-discuss Digest, Vol 133, Issue 12

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: License Review Request - Anu Initiative (Bruce Perens)
   2. Re: documentation on un-enforceability of ethical licenses?
      (was Re: License Review Request - Anu Initiative (Bruce Perens)
   3. Re: License-discuss Digest, Vol 133, Issue 3 (Tom Callaway)

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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2024 20:09:29 +0000
From: Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com>
To: license-discuss at lists.opensource.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] License Review Request - Anu Initiative
Message-ID:
	<CAK2MWOuxZ3yGdj=YXM+Sbj_X7szBqjaYcuvksmzjy=kg8xPLwQ at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I apologize for the worse phrasing than necessary. It did not further the discussion.

I'm not mistaken, everyone knew that the Vaccine license was from me before the vote. I accepted the penalty. The penalty process should have ended at that point. That two people pursue it today seems strange to me.

I have not returned to license-review since then, nor do I plan to. This is simply from my belief in the diminished value of the process, unless it is dealing with legislation or case law as Brian mentioned. And of course that is rare so far.

If it is the OSI's sentiment that every  submission must go through the process and be treated as honorably as any other, and that I should not warn people in this forum about the way they can actually hurt developers with a poorly constructed license, I will no longer do so. It's your party.
I can talk about such things elsewhere.

Thanks

Bruce

On Tue, Feb 6, 2024, 18:45 Josh Berkus <josh at berkus.org> wrote:

> On 2/6/24 02:01, Bruce Perens via License-discuss wrote:
> > I agree with Brian. Of late OSI has made progress in having other 
> > things that make them meaningful than the approval process. Dealing 
> > with legislation and case law is important. pleasing the legal 
> > neophyte who thinks they've invented better licensing is not.
>
> There is absolutely no reason to be gratuitously rude.
>
> Daniel, please be aware that Bruce does not speak for the OSI Board or 
> any body of the OSI.
>
> --
> Josh Berkus
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2024 05:34:26 +0000
From: Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com>
To: license-discuss at lists.opensource.org
Cc: Stefano Maffulli <stefano at opensource.org>, Roland Turner
	<roland at rolandturner.com>,  Daniel Mihai <daniel at anuinitiative.org>
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] documentation on un-enforceability of
	ethical licenses? (was Re: License Review Request - Anu Initiative
Message-ID:
	<CAK2MWOs8LdGe1ia5_9BJ5nCvOFGQAVmhYyH06+evrbHJfK9N4w at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

This is really very simple. Nations are sovereign powers. You can read up on what a sovereign power is. They have to agree to be sued. To make a license that would stop Putin from bombing Ukraine would require the existence of a god who enforced licenses.

Within a nation you can to some degree enforce rules against munitions contractors. This will end up in something I'm working on, to the joy of the ethical crowd, but not for the reason they would want it.

Both ITAR and EAR have carve outs for open source due to lawsuits. The carve outs specifically mention information in the public domain. This is not public domain in the copyright sense, but the opposite of trade secret.
So technically we can share anything we want with North Korea. And that makes Open Source possible for anything that is on the munitions list in ITAR 121, because how could we keep North Korea from downloading? These "munitions" include ultra low bandwith digital voice CODECs and satellite ground stations, both Open Source projects I'm involved with in the amateur radio community.

The problem comes up when some military contractor pops up on the mailing list of an Open Source project. If you answer them, you might be rendering defense services, and suddenly your project is subject to ITAR and EAR.

The best way to protect from that is simply to rule that use out in the license. Which would obviously not meet the OSD.

On Tue, Feb 6, 2024, 22:41 Roland Turner via License-discuss < license-discuss at lists.opensource.org> wrote:

> On 6/2/24 23:39, Stefano Maffulli wrote:
>
> Question for the wider group: Can you point me to a document (legal or
> otherwise) that argues the unenforceability of ethical clauses, like 
> these ones?
>
> Not on unenforceability but on harm to F/OSS communities, I spoke on 
> The critical importance of use-neutrality in F/OSS licensing 
> <https://rolandturner.com/sots/> at SOTS 2020
>
>
> - Roland
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not 
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> by the Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address.
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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2024 19:28:47 +0000
From: Tom Callaway <spotrh at gmail.com>
To: license-discuss at lists.opensource.org
Cc: daniel at anuinitiative.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] License-discuss Digest, Vol 133, Issue
	3
Message-ID:
	<CACp8ZrLyFsOoNuD+TgNRGp_ci6uyDQ7_8aFk5LyvyikhbxpLBg at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I think it is worth noting that your license may not hold up to scrutiny should you attempt to enforce it.

If you choose to put this into use, you would be well served to have it rewritten by a lawyer with experience in copyright licensing.

~spot

On Tue, Feb 6, 2024, 6:43?PM Josh Berkus <josh at berkus.org> wrote:

> On 2/5/24 08:38, Daniel Mihai wrote:
> > AI-OAL Section 4
> > 4. Environmental Responsibility Clause You must use The Product in a 
> > way that positively contributes to environmental conservation and 
> > sustainability.
> > You shall not use The Product in any way that significantly harms 
> > the environment, as determined at the discretion of the Organization.
> >
> > We are happy to remove the restriction of use for positive 
> > ecological conservation and sustainability, yet we are not happy to 
> > allow usage of the product for means that significantly harms the environment - as this
> >   would go against our companies values/mission/vision.
> >
> > Can you please let us know how best we can amend Section 4 in a way that
> >   is compliant with ODS 6?
>
> There is no method or wording which allows you to reconcile these two 
> incompatible goals.
>
> OSD6 exists because it's not possible for software to be open source 
> while restricting what industries or purposes it's used in.  A lot of 
> us would love to see a workable legal framework for ethical open 
> source licenses, but there simply isn't one.  And folks have been 
> trying for quite some time.
>
> That's not to say that you can't use this license.  You can, and you 
> should, given your company's mission.  It just won't be open source.
>
> --
> Josh Berkus
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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