[License-review] For Approval: NASA Open Source Agreement 2.0

[Engel Nyst]

On 07/09/2013 06:50 PM, John Cowan wrote:
>> Indeed, to me the previous version reads clearly the "request" as
>> license condition.
>
> "Request" can never be a condition; it would have to be "require".  When
> you "request" something, you merely ask for it without any conditions
> whatsoever.
>

I stand corrected, and I apologize. Thanks to the list answers and upon
further thought, I believe my previous statement has been an unjustified
leap, and provably incorrect as stated.

On 06/25/2013 12:19 AM, Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz wrote:
> The difference between "requests" and "requires" is subtile :-).
> By the way, which OSD principle could possibly been violated here?
>

The website or email of the originating entity is not technology-neutral 
(OSD 10). A website can be down, an email can be abandoned, a downstream 
user can have no internet access, or the entity originating the software 
can no longer exist.
Non-discrimination against users or groups, OSD 5, is arguably at odds 
with identification of recipients and downstream distributors of the 
software. I think anonymous or pseudonymous receipt and distribution is 
implied in the OSD.
OSD 7 would be even more relevant, in the sense that the rights of the 
recipient to use or modify the software for their needs should not 
depend on the user doing additional actions like registration. The 
paragraph applies to any person or entity upon receipt, as far as I can 
tell, not only to those who download it from NASA site.
I think requiring registration for tracking usage, or some other form of 
calling back to the licensor for the rights to use or distribute, is not 
consistent with an open source license. IMHO this has nothing to do with 
registration on the licensor's site, or integration of a request in the 
software or documentation, only with it as a clause of a license.

On 07/10/2013 08:45 AM, Carlo Piana wrote:
 > Despite the language correctly interpreted is not a condition, as many
 > pointed out, the clause is open to ambiguity. Ambiguity that shall be
 > resolved by the submitter, IMHO.
 >

Thank you for expressing it much better than I could.