For approval: MXM Public license

Matthew Flaschen matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu
Fri Apr 10 14:47:33 UTC 2009


Tzeng, Nigel H. wrote:
> I disagree.  The area that would be relaxed for reference/academic licenses
> is one aspect of OSD#6...namely for non-commercial use.

You haven't clearly defined what a "reference software license" is.  But
non-commercial licenses violate OSD #1, #5, and #6.

  Given that the
> rationale for OSD #6 is "We want commercial users to join our community, 
> not feel excluded from it." and it is primarily commercial users that want
> such a limitation then calling it Reference Licenses vs open would clearly
> indicate that these licenses are not open source, BUT meets the OSD in all
> other areas except for one aspect of OSD#6 and standardizes the terminology
> so that no confusing term (like shared source) needs to be used to describe
> this kind of code.

As is, businesses are excluded from neither end.  Businesses can use all
open source software, and they can distribute open source software (and
profit from it).  Your proposal would exclude them from one end.

> All current CC licenses allow the core right to redistribute a work
> for non-commercial purposes without modification.

Actually, Dev Nations
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/devnations/2.0/) does not allow me
to do even that, because I do not live in a developing nation.

 But you also don't
> NEED to say anything about all CC licenses.  The license banners are
> very clear in your rights and obligations.

Most users are not going to look at those.  The point is, there is no
single principle behind CC I can tell people about.

>> What exactly would this plain-text description be.  "You have the right
>> to redistribute the program, but then you might get sued by the Licensor
>> for patent infringement anyway."
> 
> BY-NC-SA - Attribution + Non-Commercial + ShareAlike.

You can be sued for infringing a patent even if you never do anything
commercial.  So you have less rights than BY-NC-SA.

>> They can go to CC, though it seems a bit ridiculous to suddenly switch
>> your license arbitrator when you don't get your way.
> 
> Not if the license arbiter says "out of my jurisdiction".

It's not out of OSI's jurisdiction.  OSI's jurisdiction is software, and
that's exactly what this is about.

Matt Flaschen




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