[License-review] License Committee Report

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Richard Fontana (fontana at sharpeleven.org):

[FPL 1.0.0:]

> The license is clearly OSD-conformant. I do not find the policy
> objections to the Free Public License persuasive, particularly given
> that no such objections were raised when CC0 was submitted. (CC0 also
> has no expectation of CC0-covered works bearing a copyright notice and
> has no notice-preservation condition.) 

I would speculate that none was raised about CC0 because that licence
has an explicit, specified role for the 'Affirmer', without whom the
fallback permissive provisions would be at best suspiciously vague and 
for all I know might lack legal force.  You may recall that the fallback 
permissive licence clauses (that take effect if dedication to the public
domain is locally ineffective) is what brought out support for CC0 --
though apparently on account of separate dispute over patent concerns it
was withdrawn before approval.

Notice that Affirmer is prompted for at
https://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/waiver , which Creative Commons
provides as an automated template.

On reflection, nothing stops someone from issuing a work's instance
under CC0 without identifying the erstwhile copyright owner(s) -- just
as nothing prevents doing so with any other licence, prepended copyright
template or no.  The difference is that CC0 expects and prompts
identification of the licensor, while FPL goes out of its way to
discourage it, and indeed that is its central objective.

If the Board bases its approval decisions mechanistically on OSD
compliance, then Richard's recommendation should certainly be followed.
The case for non-approval rests in the contention that the licence's 
aim of concealing licensors is harmful to the interests of downstream
code recipients.

Persons of goodwill might differ on how to answer that question, but I 
hope the board will consider that, too, rather than just OSD compliance
without any concern for outside considerations.


> While for historical reasons many simple permissive ('lax') licenses
> have included a template copyright notice, many open source licenses
> have no notion of an incorporated copyright notice. One could use this
> license with a copyright notice if one chooses. 

Seems like argument from irrelevancy, to me, because one could use _any_
licence without a copyright notice if one chooses.

-- 
Cheers,                         "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog --
Rick Moen                       unless you type 'woof, woof, woof'."
rick at linuxmafia.com                                               -- pyellman
McQ! (4x80)