[License-discuss] Linkumori Free License, Version 1.0 – Submission for OSI Review

[Richard Fontana]

On Mon, Jun 22, 2026 at 12:35 AM Pamela Chestek <pamela at chesteklegal.com> wrote:
>
> You've changed some of the original Apache words to words that, in my opinion, are worse. What is the reason for changing "copyright owner" to "copyright holder"? I don't know what a "holder" is but I do know what an "owner" is. Is a non-exclusive licensee a "holder"? And you haven't changed it consistently throughout, which means you're creating an argument that there is some difference between a "copyright holder" and a "copyright owner."

This may now be moot (in the American English sense) because the
submitter has apparently revised the license to consistently use
"copyright owner", but it seems "copyright holder" is a fairly widely
used alternative to "copyright owner" (the terms seem to be synonymous
when looking at evidence of existing use) including in some
governmental materials. In FOSS rhetoric/documents, it has been my
casual observation that "copyright holder" seems to be preferred over
"copyright owner", I think perhaps due to the influence of Richard
Stallman and the Free Software Foundation (where, I'd hypothesize, the
preference in FOSS, if there is one, originally arose). As to *why*
that preference exists in FOSS, or at least in the part of it that is
close to the FSF, I'd speculate that it's because of some discomfort
in using more direct "ownership" rhetoric, as perhaps that seems to
legitimize so-called intellectual property, especially in a context
where the copyright owner is playing a neutral-to-positive role (from
a free software/copyleft perspective).

Richard