[License-review] For Legacy Approval: TOPPERS License

[Yutaka MATSUBARA]

Members of the OSI License Review Community,

I'm writing you this e-mail to request approval for our License.
Please let me know any questions and recommendations about this 
submittal. Thank you for your consideration.

The submission type: For Legacy Approval

License name: TOPPERS License

License text:
----- start of license text -----
<Name of Software>

Copyright (C) <Year> by <Copyright Holder 1>
Copyright (C) <Year> by <Copyright Holder 2>
...

  The above copyright holders grant permission gratis to use,
  duplicate, modify, or redistribute (hereafter called use) this
  software (including the one made by modifying this software),
  provided that the following four conditions (1) through (4) are
  satisfied.

  (1) When this software is used in the form of source code, the above
      copyright notice, this use conditions, and the disclaimer shown
      below must be retained in the source code without modification.

  (2) When this software is redistributed in the forms usable for the
      development of other software, such as in library form, the above
      copyright notice, this use conditions, and the disclaimer shown
      below must be shown without modification in the document provided
      with the redistributed software, such as the user manual.

  (3) When this software is redistributed in the forms unusable for the
      development of other software, such as the case when the software
      is embedded in a piece of equipment, either of the following two
      conditions must be satisfied:

    (a) The above copyright notice, this use conditions, and the
        disclaimer shown below must be shown without modification in
        the document provided with the redistributed software, such as
        the user manual.

    (b) How the software is to be redistributed must be reported to the
        TOPPERS Project according to the procedure described
        separately.

  (4) The above copyright holders and the TOPPERS Project are exempt
      from responsibility for any type of damage directly or indirectly
      caused from the use of this software and are indemnified by any
      users or end users of this software from any and all causes of
      action whatsoever.

  THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS." THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND
  THE TOPPERS PROJECT DISCLAIM ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES,
  INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ITS APPLICABILITY TO A PARTICULAR
  PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND THE
  TOPPERS PROJECT BE LIABLE FOR ANY TYPE OF DAMAGE DIRECTLY OR
  INDIRECTLY CAUSED FROM THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
----- end of license text -----


Supporting data are as follows.

Rationale:
TOPPERS (Toyohashi Open Platform for Embedded Real-time Systems) 
Project is a Non-Profit Organization (NPO) in Japan. The project was 
established in 2000 to develop and distribute system software such as 
real-time operating systems, middlewares, etc. for embedded systems. 
In April 2015, 118 organizations including (domestic/abroad) 
companies, universities and research institutes, and 77 individuals 
have been members of the project. The project has already developed a 
lot of software products and distributed them as open-source software. 
Almost the products have been recognized as high-quality software and 
widely used in many kinds of commercial products including home 
appliance, automotive and rocket.
In most of software distributed by TOPPERS project, the original 
license called TOPPERS License has been applied. A distinctive feature 
of the TOPPERS license is paragraph (b) in section(3). This section 
imposes only reporting of the fact that the software is used in a 
product to the project on users and allows the users to keep the 
source code of software embedded in the product closed. We call this 
way as "Reportware" and believe that TOPPERS License is suitable for 
users who use the software in their embedded system products and do 
not wish to make the source code of the software public.

Web: http://www.toppers.jp/en/index.html

Proliferation category: Special purpose licenses (for embedded 
systems) or Non-reusable licenses

Legal Review: This license was authored by lawyers in Japan.


Best regards,
Yutaka MATSUBARA, Ph.D.
- Assistant Professor, Center for Embedded Computing System, Nagoya 
University, Japan
- Committee member of TOPPERS Project