[License-review] Request for Approval : Modular Open-source Software License (MOSL)

[Hadrien Grasland]

On 09/25/2012 08:00 PM, Bruce Perens wrote:
> On 09/25/2012 10:51 AM, Hadrien Grasland wrote:
>> Well, I'm not sure it's that. What I want to allow is for derivative 
>> works to be licensed under the same terms and some more.
> It's trivially simple to construct terms that negate the effect of the 
> previous ones. Like "Oh, by the way, all of what I've said before only 
> applies after you make the huge payment specified here."
>
> So, now you need to state what terms are permitted in the license of a 
> derivative work, and what is excluded.

Really ? I would have thought that the second line of these licenses 
("Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are 
met: ") pretty much disallowed that, since if you introduced a 
contradictory term in a derivative's license, the "original conditions" 
would not be met, and you would thus not be allowed to use and release 
the derivative work in the first place.

>>
>> That's what I have in mind, indeed. Sorry for using the wrong 
>> terminology.
> It's always license /combination./ This is especially relevant in the 
> case of an LGPL-like license, as the user has the right to ask for 
> /some /of the source of a proprietary derivative work, but not /all 
> /of it.

I guess I understand that. Anything else would mean that the author of 
the derivative work would have acquired ownership of the original work, 
which is not the case and anyway out of the scope of what I'm trying to 
build.

>> "Generalized Sleepycat License"
> Sleepycat is a trademark. You'd have to ask them.

As you said in a later mail, asking Oracle about trademarks is probably 
not going to work :) Guess I'm gonna have to stick with MOSL then. After 
all, since we're talking about license combination, the MOSL remains 
open-source even if a derivative work is released under a combination of 
MOSL and a non-open source license, and that is the point.

A legal question that remains, though, is whether I even have the right 
to copy/paste large chunks of the Sleepycat license in my own license 
without having written it. Isn't the license itself protected by copyright ?
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