[License-review] Request for approval of the Non-Coercive Copyleft Licence (NCCL) 1.0

[Tim Makarios]

On Thu, 2015-07-30 at 20:01 -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> > The downside of compulsory dual-licensing would be that there would no
> > longer be the option of ensuring (to the greatest extent possible) that
> > no-one could be sued for their use of derivative works of an
> > NCCL-licensed work.
> 
> I don't understand that.  If the NCCL imposes any restrictions (which
> it does) on derivative works, then people can be sued for violating
> those restrictions.

Can you give an example of how someone could be sued for their use of a
derivative work of an NCCL-licensed work?

The intention is that the *only* restriction is that derivative works
are similarly licensed.  Perhaps you could be sued if you purport to
license derivative works under a different licence, or perhaps you could
only be sued if you try to enforce the terms of that different license,
or perhaps the NCCL could simply be used in self-defence if you try to
sue someone for violating the terms of the licence you purport to apply
to your derivative work; I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know how this
would play out, which is why I said "to the greatest extent possible".

> If you want to avoid that, use a CC0 license.

But people can easily be sued for their use of derivative works of a
CC0-licensed work, if those derivative works are restrictively licensed.

Tim
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