<div dir="ltr"><div>Larry, if it makes you feel any better, I always think of you during each of these email threads!</div><div><br></div><div>henrik<br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 11:29 PM Lawrence Rosen <<a href="mailto:lrosen@rosenlaw.com">lrosen@rosenlaw.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">I'm tired of everyone forgetting OSL 3.0, as if AGPL is the only license<br>
worth considering. Licensing bigots! /Larry<br>
<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: License-discuss <<a href="mailto:license-discuss-bounces@lists.opensource.org" target="_blank">license-discuss-bounces@lists.opensource.org</a>> On<br>
Behalf Of Florian Weimer<br>
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2020 1:19 PM<br>
To: <a href="mailto:license-discuss@lists.opensource.org" target="_blank">license-discuss@lists.opensource.org</a><br>
Subject: [License-discuss] Extending copyleft and out-of-the-box compliance<br>
<br>
I was a bit surprised to learn that the CAL was accepted, given that its<br>
copyleft extensions have the same major problem as the AGPL.<br>
<br>
With that I do not mean the predominant use of the AGPL as a GPL variant for<br>
open-core business models, but that the AGPL requires to provide source code<br>
access over the network even if the software itself does not provide a means<br>
for accessing it.<br>
<br>
Curiously, the GPL has already dealt with a similar issue. Version 1 says<br>
this:<br>
<br>
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when<br>
run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use<br>
in the simplest and most usual way, to print or display an<br>
announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice<br>
that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a<br>
warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these<br>
conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this General<br>
Public License.<br>
<br>
This was changed in version 2:<br>
<br>
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively<br>
when run, you must cause it, when started running for such<br>
interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an<br>
announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a<br>
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide<br>
a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under<br>
these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this<br>
License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but<br>
does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on<br>
the Program is not required to print an announcement.)<br>
<br>
Note the new exception. I think this makes a lot of sense because it<br>
ensures that anyone can make unrelated modifications to the program and<br>
distribute them, without adding the startup notification first.<br>
Some GPL programs have such notifications (Emacs, GDB, Guile), but a lot do<br>
not or only print a subset of the notifications (ed, jshell, CLISP, GCL,<br>
Maxima etc.).<br>
<br>
Unfortunately, this exception was not carried over into the AGPL. As a<br>
result, use of most programs licensed under the AGPL become non-compliant<br>
once local modifications are made because the source code access requirement<br>
is not met. In most cases, I don't think this is because the party who made<br>
the modification wants to keep the modifications secret, but rather due to<br>
oversight or the cumbersome nature of manual source code publishing (the<br>
usual reasons for copyleft non-compliance). Hence the need for out-of-the<br>
box compliance.<br>
<br>
I think the change from GPL version 1 to GPL version 2 shows one way to<br>
ensure that: Copyleft extensions should only be in force if the work<br>
contains built-in mechanisms that enable automatic compliance with such<br>
extensions. This means that activating these extensions needs a conscious<br>
decision by the authors, and also a clarification of the scope of the<br>
extension and its concrete impact on use.<br>
<br>
What do you think? Could that be adopted as an informal guidance for future<br>
license reviews?<br>
<br>
One problem is that a feature that cannot be legally removed again once it<br>
has been added looks a lot like DRM. But I think it would still be<br>
preferable to have feature-conditional license elements rather than the same<br>
elements unconditionally, potentially without a compliance mechanism built<br>
into the work.<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><a href="mailto:henrik.ingo@avoinelama.fi" target="_blank">henrik.ingo@avoinelama.fi</a><br>+358-40-5697354 skype: henrik.ingo irc: hingo<br><a href="http://www.openlife.cc" target="_blank">www.openlife.cc</a><br><br>My LinkedIn profile: <a href="http://fi.linkedin.com/pub/henrik-ingo/3/232/8a7" target="_blank">http://fi.linkedin.com/pub/henrik-ingo/3/232/8a7</a></div></div>