[Fwd: Re: For Approval: The Azure License]

[Kenneth Ballenegger]

I'll be responding to all of your comments in one email, for the sake  
of simplicity.

Bruce, you have a good point about the ambiguous indirect mode. I've  
rewritten the license in direct (you) mode.

I've also removed the part about the documentation being included in  
the license. (If I do release documentation, I can just use CC-BY,  
right?)

Ryan: The name comes from my company, Azure Talon Software. I only  
took the first word because I wanted to keep it simple and legible.  
The Azure Talon License sounds a big long and plain bad. I had never  
heard of Microsoft Azure before, and I believe Azeurus has now been  
rebranded Vuze. I personally don't think it causes much confusion,  
what do you guys think?

Wilson: Good point about big OSS projects having many copyright  
holders. I could add a clause that states that in case there are  
multiple copyright holders, attribution should be given to the group  
as a whole (eg. Contains code from the Linux project [link]) -- do you  
think that would work?

I don't mind the license being GPL2-incompatible. I've always been a  
firm believer that the GPL stifles innovation and goes against the  
spirit of open-source. A friend of mine blogged a pretty convincing  
argument here: http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/825/getting-pretty-lonely

Luis, I did explain the motive and rationale behind the license in the  
initial post to the mailing list.

I agree with you that CC-BY is something similar to what I'm trying to  
do -- but CC-BY doesn't work for software.

Also, just a note: I will be using this license for my own projects,  
but I will also release the license for anybody to use if it meets  
their needs.

So far, here is the revised license:

-

The Azure License

Copyright (c) {year} {copyright holders, including link}

You (the licensee) are hereby granted permission, free of charge, to  
deal in this software without restriction, including without  
limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,  
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of this software, subject  
to the following conditions:

You must give attribution to the copyright holder(s), by name and by  
hyperlink, in the about box, credits document and/or documentation of  
any derivative work using a substantial portion of this software.

You may not use the name of the copyright holder(s) to endorse or  
promote products derived from this software without specific prior  
written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,  
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF  
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.  
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY  
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,  
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE  
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

http://seoxys.com/azure-license/

-

Changes: I removed the third condition: didn't really see a need for  
it. Rewrote the license to speak directly to the licensee (using You).  
Cut out a few unnecessary  and ambiguous parts.

Question: is it possible to add text to the license that isn't  
considered legal? I'd like to write an introduction paragraph that  
explains the license and in particular the "meaningful" attribution  
requirement in plain english.

Best,
Kenneth

---
Kenneth Ballenegger
kenneth.ballenegger.com
kenneth at ballenegger.com



On 08 Jul 2009, at 1:31 AM, Bruce Perens wrote:

>