[License-review] License submission for approval for Moritz30-Projects Open Source License Version 1

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Matthias Merkel (moritz30 at moritz30.de):

> "As for linking the "original" homepage, I don't see the reason: the
> very concept of "original" seems to lack meaning in the FOSS context."
> - The reason for that is to ensure an other way for users who maybe
> don't want to download the software through a specific platform and to
> prevent claiming an unmodified version as own work.

A simple copyright notice suffices to achieve this objective, and is the
standard solution.  (For hosted software where the 'ASP loophole' is an
issue, there are other standard solutions such as those used by the
Affero copyleft licences.)

Matthias, please take seriously the feedback you're getting on
license-review.  Not only does it clearly indicate the way an OSI review
is likely to turn out, but also it gives you a preview of how well
accepted and adopted your licence would be.  The ground is littered with 
poorly drafted licences cobbled together by software engineers who
either don't understand law, don't understand open source, or both.
Inevitably, works covered by those licences end up obscure, in part
because of the widespread perception that peculiar, obscure licences are
best avoided.

> A link is only required for completely unmodified and complete
> versions. As soon as you just take a snippet of code you will no
> longer have to place a link anywhere. Also the link just have to be on
> the download page where the redistributor allows downloading the
> software. This will also be defined in the update I'll do today.

First of all, this is attempting to address a non-problem, and frankly
is unclear on the principles of open source.  Open source is based on
the idea that anyone should be free to fork the code, maintain, and
redistribute it with all the same rights as the original creator.  There
is no single maintainer who is blessed as being _the_ maintainer.

Consider, for example, the programmer's text editor XEmacs, developed in
the late 1980s as a fork of GNU Emacs as (what was initially named)
'Lucid Emacs' by Lucid, Inc.  of Menlo Park, California.  Lucid, Inc.
went bankrupt and dissolved in 1994, but other developers continue to
maintain it.  A mandated link to the 'original' at Lucid, Inc. would now
be doubly absurd:  There was nothing sacred about Lucid's 'main' fork of
the code, and Lucid doesn't even exist any more.

Please listen to the large number of people who are already telling you
this 'link to the original' is a bad idea and is likely to be one of
several things that prevent OSD-compliance.

-- 
Cheers,                                  A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi.
Rick Moen                                (a precipice in front, wolves behind)
rick at linuxmafia.com                                         -- Roman saying 
McQ! (4x80)