Question and review (Was: Re: Request - University Jaume I License.)

Tue Jun 3 19:53:50 UTC 2008

Paul,

Email notification has been discussed for years. I think there was a 
license, from Apple, that asked for the user to attempt to send email to 
a specific address, and also made it clear that their obligation would 
be discharged by making the attempt, whether the email was delivered or 
not. That makes your license continue to work when life changes, as it 
will. However, while this has been tried, I have no information that 
this sort of email notification has ever been worthwhile for anyone. Web 
searches are generally enough to find anyone who is actively modifying 
your program these days, if they haven't voluntarily chosen to tell you. 
But in reality they would be discussing on your email list and you would 
know them.

Given the past history, it might be that OSI is loath to approve another 
license with that failed email experiment in it.

Also, I suspect that the two licenses you have shown us so far have not 
had the attention of a lawyer. The wording just doesn't seem clear and 
unambiguous. Such attention is no cure-all, but I think you could 
potentially harm other developers if a license without the proper legal 
attention is given to Open Source developers who use it and depend on 
its various provisions being effective and enforcible. One recent case 
of this happening is the JMRI project. In that project the developers 
code was used in a commercial product, and the vendor of that commercial 
product then sued the developer whose work he was using for patent 
infringement. The developer had difficulty defending himself from that 
unsavory character, because he had used an old "Artistic" license from 
before any Open Source folks could get legal help. The license that 
should have protected the developer did not hold up in court.

There are many attorneys who would like to build credibility in Open 
Source, and are willing to work for free while doing so, or who are 
associated with colleges, or have other reasons to work for free like 
those of the Software Freedom Law Center in the U.S. You could find one. 
Or you could take a harder look at all of the approved licenses.

    Thanks

    Bruce

Paul Santapau wrote:
> Hi all, 
>
>  I must apologize for the submited license on my first e-mail because 
> that is not the license that we are using for "Open Source Software", a copy 
> of the correct license is pasted below, this license does not limit the 
> software in any way and it is the one we would apply to get OSI inclusion.
>  
> However, that license has some points in common, point that Bruce has 
> mentioned in its argumentation so, I would like to clarify them: 
>
>  >[...] Requiring e-mail permission 
>
> That license we use for Open Source asks the modifier or redistributer of the 
> code for an e-mail notification, the motivation of this notification is to
> keep the track on the software in order to recontribute to the comunity and
> the open knowledge.
>
> University Jaume I is commited to spread and share the knowledge it generates 
> in an open way so the possibility of being notificated when software under
> this license is modified or distributed can turn the fact in a colaboration
> for research or improve that software, always returning the results to the
> open source community. That is the justification of demanding the e-mail
> notification. Please note that it is not the same as asking permission, asking
> permission would requiere a reply by the author, in that case, the modifier or 
> distributer only has to send an email indicating the fact he is going to do
> it.  
>
> The author will treat that information only with informational and statistical 
> scientific ends so in order to study the open source phenomenon and to propose 
> research colaborations.
>  
> Finally notify the OSI comitee that a legal report will be attached to the 
> final inclusion request in order to study and justify the OSD conformance.  
>
> I would thank any feedback over this license.
>
> Paul.
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                                  University Jaume I License. 
>
>
> 1. This program can be executed by the end user without any restriction.
>
> 2. Copying and distribution of this software is allowed to any purpose by 
>     any means with the only limitation of  keeping on each copy a mention 
>     to the author of the program and an exact copy of these license conditions
>     and the disclaimer of the warranty. 
>
> 3. Modification and redistribution of the software is allowed while in the
>     software is mentioned the original authorship (or the sentence “software
>     modified from an original development of <<author's name>>”) and this
>     mention does not make confusion with the original. Any person or entity
>     that modifies and redistribute the modified code must inform via
>     electronic mail of this circumstance to “xxxx at xxx.xx (author's email
>     here)”.
>
> 4. The source code covered by this license is available for free download at
>     http://xxxx.xx... (author's owned url here).
>
> 5. Copying, usage or distribution of this software implies the acceptance of
>     this conditions.
>
> 6. Copying and distribution of this software, implies the application of the
>     present conditions to the recipient. The distributor cannot establish
>    additional conditions that limit in any way the ones stated here.
>
> Disclaimer of Warranty.
> This program is distributed for free. The author, neither offers any warranty 
> on this software nor accept any responsibility for its use or inability to 
> use it.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> El Tuesday 03 June 2008 10:29:22 Bruce Perens escribió:
>   
>> Hi Paul,
>>
>> Requiring email permission is the same as saying "no" and "never" in the
>> license. If someone asks your permission through email and you give it,
>> that permission is a separate license, not really connected with the
>> license you sent to this list.
>>
>> So, the short answer would be "no, you can't do that in an Open Source
>> license". In general, we've found that inclusion in distributions that
>> cost money, like Red Hat or even Microsoft Windows, does not harm the
>> software author or anyone else. There's always another way to get the
>> software for free, so nobody's going to make a lot of money on your
>> code. "Reciprocal" licenses like the GPL are a good way to keep a
>> company from running away with your software, since GPL would require
>> them to release their modifications with the same rights as yours.
>>
>> I feel your submission is best treated as a question about Open Source
>> licensing rather than a license to be approved. If the OSI were to
>> approve such casually submitted licenses, there would be harm to the
>> community because software developers would have a tremendous legal load
>> to analyze all of the available licenses and their combinations before
>> the put together software under different licenses into a single
>> program. That load is already much too large today.
>>
>> I don't speak for OSI, but I created the rule set that OSI uses, for
>> another project, about 10 months before OSI formed.
>>
>>     
>
>   
>> [...]
>>     