[License-review] iSEEEULA-1.0 for Approval

[John Cowan]

Unfortunately, this license contains several violations of the OSD.

Xue, Yuan scripsit:

> However, you may not license or sell the Software to a third party
> for a fee or compensation.

That violates OSD #1:  "The license shall not restrict any party from
selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate
software distribution containing programs from several different sources."
If this point is essential to you, your code simply cannot be Open Source.

> This Agreement does not grant you any rights in the Software

What does that mean?  It appears to contradict the rest of the license.

> You may not combine or distribute the Software with other software that
> is licensed pursuant to terms that seek to require that the Software
> (or any associated intellectual property) be licensed to or otherwise
> shared with others.

This also violates OSD #1, because of the vagueness of "with other
software".  Does this mean it can't be distributed on the same CD-ROM
with GPLed software?  If you merely mean that it is incompatible with
the GPL, that is already true for other reasons.

> The rights associated with this Agreement apply only to the downloaded
> Software, not to any derivate work(s) which may be made by Vanderbilt
> or anyone else from the Software.

That violates OSD #3:  "The license must allow modifications and derived
works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as
the license of the original software."

> If you are a party to or involved in any legal action associated in any
> way with the Software, this Agreement and all rights granted hereunder
> shall automatically terminate.

This does not violate an explicit OSD clause, but is obviously too broad.

> You agree that the Software shall not be shipped, transferred, or
> exported into any country or used in any manner prohibited by the
> United States Export Administration Act, or any other export laws,
> restrictions or regulations.

This is both unnecessary (for U.S. licensees) and overly restrictive (for
licensees outside the U.S.)  There is no need to require in a license
that licensees obey the law, and it is particularly bad to impose U.S.
law on people who would otherwise have no connection with it.  Indeed,
it appears to apply *every* export regulation in the world to *all*
licensees, a burden that is obviously impossible to satisfy.

Please switch to an existing OSI-approved license that does not have
these flaws.  Personally I would suggest that the Apache 2.0 license
might be appropriate.  If you absolutely must have your own license,
please try again.

-- 
Unless it was by accident that I had            John Cowan
offended someone, I never apologized.           cowan at ccil.org
        --Quentin Crisp                         http://www.ccil.org/~cowan