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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>>>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> License-discuss <license-discuss-bounces@lists.opensource.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY CCDC ARL (USA) via License-discuss<br><b>>>Sent:</b> Friday, February 28, 2020 7:46 AM<br><b>>>To:</b> license-discuss@lists.opensource.org<br><b>>>Cc:</b> Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY CCDC ARL (USA) <cem.f.karan.civ@mail.mil><br><b>>>Subject:</b> Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Resources to discourage governments from bespoke licenses?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>>><span style='color:#1F497D'>As one of those people who keep trying to get recognition of how the US Government (USG) **really is** different, I’d like to point out the following issues:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoListParagraph><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>>><span style='color:#1F497D'>Also as far as I know, none of the major Open Source licenses have a severability clause (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severability">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severability</a>) to address what happens if one or more clauses in the license cannot be enforced, which leaves it up to the courts to decide what will happen.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='margin-left:0in'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Mozilla 2.0 does, Sec 9. Eclipse 2.0 does, Sec. 7. There are probably others, but those come to mind immediately.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>>><span style='color:#1F497D'>This is where the weird ‘special snowflake’ issues keep coming up from (at least from my end). The concern is that if we use e.g. Apache 2.0, we don’t know if the license will be struck in its entirety if the portions regarding copyright are struck. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>This is, IMHO, an odd concern. Given that open source license is founded upon copyright licensing, if the copyright provisions are struck, there is not much left.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>>><span style='color:#1F497D'>NOSA was supposed to address that, and NOSA 3.0 was supposed to address the concerns over 2.0, but as far as I can tell, it’s dead in the water.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Was there ever a board decision on NOSA 3.0 (from the archives all I can see is discussion on v2)? If not, is it because they were waiting for something from the authors? I know I was personally frustrated by the argument that seemed to continue to be made that “the government lawyers say it must be this way” but those government lawyers were not participating in the discussion.<br><br></span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>>><span style='color:#1F497D'>If you really want to make those ‘special snowflake’ situations disappear, change the law so that the USG is no longer special, and can use the standard licenses. I, for one, would be overjoyed to be able to use the regular licenses on all my works as it makes everyone’s life easier, including my own. But as it currently stands, I don’t know if I’m exposing both the USG **and users of my work** if I use a standard license when some of the clauses don’t apply.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>I think many commenters responded that these licenses *<b>would</b>* apply, but there was not response to that other than “but that’s not what the government lawyers say.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>[There also were some concerns about non-reciprocity, IIRC, to which the response was the same as above]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>