[License-review] Approval Request: Free Public License 1.0.0

[Richard Fontana]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2015 at 12:54:55PM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> On 09/01/2015 06:43 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> >> We have had two proposals this year involving licenses which allow
> >> > stripping the license from downstream copies.  Given that, perhaps this
> >> > concept needs to be taken up in a larger venue which can debate the
> >> > legal ramifications?  And possibly amend the OSD, if necessary?
> > Josh, when you say 'possibly amend the OSD', do you mean amend the OSD
> > to clarify that something can be an open source license if it allows
> > such license-stripping, or amending the OSD to clarify that open
> > source licenses must be minimally restrictive so as to prohibit
> > downstream license-stripping? (Or do you mean possibly one or the
> > other pending such recommended taking-up in a larger venue?)
> 
> The last.
> 
> As in, I feel that the OSI board needs to make a decision, and we need
> to publish that decision somewhere.  It might not be an amendment to the
> OSD, it might be more of a footnote.  But this is a major policy
> decision, and I don't feel equipped to make it on this mailing list.

I've given some thought to this. Of those two licenses, one (NCCL)
seems to have been withdrawn from consideration by the submitter in
response to criticism from this list.The other (Free Public License)
hasn't been under discussion for too long. In neither case is the
license being used for a substantial body of software nor is that
likely to happen in the short term were the license approved. So I
don't think this is a significant enough development to justify
special examination by the OSI.

If CC0 (which also permits license stripping) were ever re-submitted
for approval, we'd have a fairly prominent license, or license-like
thing, raising this question. When CC0 was previously submitted for
approval, I don't think this feature attracted any attention.

Richard