[License-review] License compatibility for FOSS aggregations

[Lawrence Rosen]

I'm in a mood to dig deeper into the following conversation but in a
different thread. This came up in an earlier back-and-forth between me and
John Cowan:

 

Larry:

> ... and that this isn't just a typical legitimate way 

> that one copyrighted FOSS program is built 

> on top of another.

 

John:

But Alice's program is not FOSS in my hypo here.

 

Larry:

True. But it could have been such, under any FOSS license whatsoever,
without an ounce of license incompatibility.

 

We (including me) keep harping on the differences among FOSS licenses. And
some GPL advocates exaggerate those differences for collective and
derivative works by misstating the implications of 17 U.S.C. 103(b).

 

The frequent result is that, even if Bob and Alice are both devotees of
FOSS, some people say that they can't combine their free programs because of
potential license incompatibility. What a waste! They have to spend valuable
time arguing over which license is preferable.

 

Thus it is, for example, that we create both Apache Open Office and
LibreOffice, FOSS projects that differ primarily in that they use
incompatible licenses for software implementing the same functionality. But
if those copyright owners could exchange independently written modules and
link them together in imaginative ways, just think how much better that FOSS
office suite could become?

 

If we remember that all FOSS licenses grant all 17 U.S.C. §106 copyright
rights directly to every licensee, including the right to create collective
and derivative works, then all combinations of all FOSS licenses are
technically possible always. Functional aggregations are merely a technical
challenge, depending only on whether to create derivative works to implement
such linkages or to stand farther apart with glue code and API interfaces.
At the end, though, such functional aggregations are always free to use by
downstream customers as long as the software vendors and distributors
themselves honor the attribution (and other) terms and conditions of each
component license. 

 

Make sure you deal with diligent distributors and software aggregators. They
will give you a list of all FOSS components in their software just in case
you also want to become a distributor, although they are not required to
disclose their own "material contributed by the author of such work." 17
U.S.C. 103(b). 

 

So much for the ongoing GPLv3 confusion about "Corresponding Source." :-)
Disclosure requirements apply to GPL and other FOSS works (including in some
cases also derivative works), but not to independent works no matter how
linked.

 

Once again: Nobody is free to change my licenses on my own independent
works, no matter how badly they want to control my license choices.

 

Since we've been talking rather grandiosely about cultural expectations in
our community, I thought I'd risk laying my own personal cultural
expectations on the line.

 

/Larry

 

Lawrence Rosen

Rosenlaw & Einschlag ( <http://www.rosenlaw.com/> www.rosenlaw.com) 

3001 King Ranch Rd., Ukiah, CA 95482

Cell: 707-478-8932 

LinkedIn:  <http://lnkd.in/D9CWhD> http://lnkd.in/D9CWhD 

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