caGrid Open Source License For Legacy Approval

[Justin Permar]

Russ,

>Justin Permar writes:
>> I would like to submit the caGrid License for legacy approval. You can find
>> our license at the following URL: http://cagrid.org/wiki/CaGrid:LICENSE-1.2.

>Legacy approval means that no new software should be licensed using
>it.  Is that really what you want?

New versions of our software typically have a ³new license² with minor
changes (version, etc.). One item that is unclear to me is if minor language
variations make a license different enough to be ³new² (that is, does one
license have to be taken verbatim to be re-used for a new organization,
piece of software, etc. ?)

 >> I recommend this license fall into the category of "Licenses that are
 >> popular and widely used or with strong communities",

>Legacy approval never goes into that category.

OK. I read the following instructions: http://opensource.org/approval. That
page says the following:

³For Legacy Approval
By: License Steward or Interested Licensee
Retroactive approval of historic/legacy licenses that have already been
extensively used by an existing community, but have not previously been
approved.²

It also says ³Recommend which license proliferation category is
appropriate². And the list of categories is on the following page:
https://ideas.opensource.org/wiki/help/proliferation. One of those
categories is ³Licenses that are popular and widely used or with strong
communities².

I¹m of course quite happy to submit under another category. I thought legacy
approval made sense because caGrid 1.2 has been out for some time now. I
also thought the category of widely used license is accurate as there are
hundreds of caGrid services that have already been deployed and dozens of
applications that have been developed using caGrid APIs. Should I re-submit
this request under another category?

> > Please let me know If I can provide additional information to streamline the
> > approval process.

>Have you asked the licensors if they are willing to re-license under
>an existing license?  Have you explored the possibility of simply
>releasing the software under an existing license with nearly identical
>terms?  As a part-owner of a collective work, you have the legal
>authority to license the software under any license you want, as long
>as you compensate the other owners.  I'm sure we could find an existing
>license whose terms are so close that no compensation would be due.

We could discuss the possibility of modifying the license in the future. I
myself am not at all a licensing expert (I know about BSD and GPL and that¹s
it!). Is there a current open source license very similar to the caGrid 1.2
license that you recommend we take a look at?

Thank you for your reply and help.

Justin Permar