[License-review] For Approval: Scripting Free Software License, Version 1.3.6 (S-FSL v1.3.6)

[Elmar Stellnberger]

   I accept your position but do not think it is justifiable with the 
OSD criteria. Perhaps with some additional criteria like the Debian 
desert island test but not even that.
   Concerning your BSD project I do really consider it a pity that you 
are not open for new concepts regarding the licensing of your project. 
BSD has lost a lot by giving the right to re-license in the hand of 
unacquainted people. If just Apple needed to pay for re-licensing the 
BSD project had a huge sponsor. Just think of how far BSD could already 
be progressed if you and other core developers would not have given up 
their right to re-license. I would personally consider any kind of 
contribution by Apple or any other company who is making use of your 
stuff as as a necessity in regards to fairness with developers and the 
BSD community. Simply leeching out of a project without having to give 
anything back is not fair at all and the reason why so many developers 
have turned away from BSD. The simply feel how unfair it is and have 
thus prefered to work under GPL of what I call the 'communist' license. 
It simply forbids re-licensing (or only allows it by having to ask even 
the simplest contributor which is in practice impossible). Simply 
forbidding to re-license because most people think it will be unfair to 
the community is however hostile to any kind of business usage of your 
material which is in my mind not good either. Just mind to admit the 
idea of working under a similar license as S-FSL. The BSD core 
developers could fund their work more easily and the whole community 
would profit. Concerning me and my decision about licensing I do not 
want to work unpaid for industry needs only. If I work for free I would 
like to ensure that the right people can profit from it and that means 
the choice of a 'non-supressive' license. i.e. you can` t force me to 
choose 'communism' and you can`t force me into being leeched out by 
business people without gaining own revenue either. It is a matter of 
fairness and I hope you will understand me.

Elmar Stellnberger


Am 18.11.2013 19:31, schrieb Thorsten Glaser:
> Elmar Stellnberger dixit:
>
>> I would recommend getting your license
>> OSI[1] approved,
>> So he thinks the license is or could be OSI compliant. Otherwise
>> he would not need to write that.
> I think you misread that: he didn’t suggest it because he thought
> your licence would fit, since it clearly doesn’t (as is) but as a
> generic first step, because an OSI approved licence is, in almost
> all cases, also DFSG free (no surprise given history). This isn’t
> unambiguous, especially to people who aren’t English native spea‐
> kers, but I think my reading is the most sound one. (Also, Debian
> is not an entity – in Debian, every developer talks for himself –
> so something paultag wrote has no bearing on something written by
> algernon, unless they explicitly refer each other.
>
> Anyway, your stated goals are contrary to Open Source, which is a
> reason I haven’t replied any more either (you seem to want to not
> fix the real problems but pile bad wording on top of bad wording,
> and lose people in discussion, too). I suggest you either use one
> of the existing proper OSS licences or, frankly, go away. (I am a
> BSD developer, so I’m entitled to be rude like that.) Considering
> all this discussion, I’d personally not touch your software, even
> if your licence *were* OSI approved. There is precedent e.g. with
> J�rg Schilling wrt. upstream having their… own… idea about licen‐
> cing.
>
> bye,
> //mirabilos