[UOML] License for approval

[Russ Nelson]

Lawrence Rosen writes:
 > This is not a problem of coming up with the right wording. I don't think you
 > have a language problem with your license. The issue is that you're trying
 > to do something with an open source copyright license that isn't consistent
 > with the OSD. Once you give someone the right to create derivative works,
 > you can't (in an open source license) say "except for certain kinds of
 > derivative works...."
 > 
 > Open source copyright licenses cannot be used to prevent people from making
 > any modifications to the software that they want. They may be obliged to
 > provide notices of their changes, or to remove trademarks and certification
 > marks that no longer apply to the modified software, or sometimes even to
 > publish the source code of their changes, but they can't be prevented from
 > varying from your compliance standards. Their changes may cause their
 > software to infringe patents, or may violate some other contractual or legal
 > limitation that they've accepted to obey and for which they are liable, but
 > the open source part of all this is *free for anyone to modify however they
 > choose for any purpose*. 
 > 
 > There are many reasons why the open source community doesn't allow industry
 > standards to dominate our freedom to modify software. Brian's earlier email
 > gave some good ones. I hope you can reconcile your particular Java standard
 > with that form of openness, or you will be unlikely to find allies in the
 > open source community.

This friend speaks my mind[1].

[1] Only better, because he's good at the word thing.  Lawyers should
be poets, really, they should.

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