[License-review] Approval request for ZENTAO PUBLIC LICENSE

Thu Jun 23 18:43:53 UTC 2016

4-clause BSD does not seem to have ever been nonambiguously described by
the OSI as an OSI-approved license. The OSI appears to have initially
(at the earliest point at which it listed approved licenses at all)
grandfathered in GPLv2, LGPLv2.1, the 3-clause BSD license, and the MIT
license (the version that is OSI-approved today). The earliest archived
version of the page for the BSD license had the prefatory content:

" Note: The advertising clause in the license appearing on BSD Unix
files was officially rescinded by the Director of the Office of
Technology Licensing of the University of California on July 22 1999. He
states that clause 3 is ``hereby deleted in its entirety.''

Note the new BSD license is thus equivalent to the MIT License, except
for the no-endorsement final clause. <OWNER> = Regents of the University
of California
<ORGANIZATION> = University of California, Berkeley
<YEAR> = 1998

In the original BSD license, the first occurrence of the phrase
"COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS" in the disclaimer read "REGENTS AND
CONTRIBUTORS".  "

I'd also note that before the OSI seems to have listed any approved
licenses, it gave the Apache web server as one of the examples of
successful open source software, at a time when the license governing
Apache was (if I'm not mistaken) the license later known as the Apache
[Software] License 1.0, which contained an advertising clause similar to
what's in 4-clause BSD.

The Apache Software License 1.1 was once listed as an OSI-approved
license, but it did not have an advertising clause.

Today, the OSI page for the 3-clause BSD license says, following the
historical explanation about the 4-clause BSD license: "The four clause
license has not been approved by OSI."

Which I do not like, because it seems to imply unnecessarily that the
4-clause BSD license would not (if submitted for approval) satisfy the
Open Source Definition.

I don't think of advertising clauses of the sort found in 4-clause BSD
as being badgeware requirements, though (although they raise some
similar policy concerns).

Richard

On 06/23/2016 01:42 PM, Smith, McCoy wrote:
> Interesting.  I'd forgotten about CPAL.
> Just out of curiosity, was 4-clause BSD (aka BSD with advertising clause) ever on the OSI list?  It seems that 3-clause came about (and 4-clause "rescinded") around the time that OSI was created.  If 4-clause BSD were on the OSI list, that'd be another OSI-approved "badgeware" license (according to my understanding of that term).
> But I'm suspecting it wasn't;  I think there's never been a removal (just deprecation) of any license on the list, and the page on BSD doesn't show 3-clause as superseding 4-clause.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: License-review [mailto:license-review-bounces at opensource.org] On Behalf Of Richard Fontana
> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2016 12:19 PM
> To: license-review at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: [License-review] Approval request for ZENTAO PUBLIC LICENSE
> 
> Possibly. One problem is that an earlier incarnation of the OSI approved a license that would probably have to be considered a badgeware license:
> https://opensource.org/licenses/CPAL-1.0
> 
> This license was drafted to address concerns that were raised in the OSI community regarding earlier badgeware licenses. Nonetheless I think it fits your definition of badgeware.
> 
> Richard
> 
> 
> On 06/21/2016 03:01 PM, Smith, McCoy wrote:
>> Is it worth putting something on the OSD pages specific to this issue?  Seems like badgeware (although one probably ought to define what that is -- I think of it as something that prevents removal of any identification information in the code other than copyright and change notices) violates OSD 4 (and maybe OSD 3), but saying that explicitly on the OSD page might prevent people from thinking that badgeware licenses are allowed.
>>
>> McCoy
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: License-review [mailto:license-review-bounces at opensource.org] On 
>> Behalf Of Richard Fontana
>> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2016 11:57 AM
>> To: license-review at opensource.org
>> Subject: Re: [License-review] Approval request for ZENTAO PUBLIC 
>> LICENSE
>>
>> I also agree with Josh - the OSI should not be approving badgeware licenses. Now, maybe there's some argument for some narrow form of badgeware condition being acceptable (based on historical precedent) but looking at this license, section 2.4 (which I think I didn't read closely before):
>>
>> "2.4 You or your company/organization must keep all the indications of the software when using it. None of the indications can be removed, hidden or obscured in any way."
>>
>> While worded somewhat unclearly I would say this goes way beyond any quasi-badgeware-like requirement the OSI has ever approved. So my view is this license must be rejected in its present form.
>>
>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
>> On 06/21/2016 02:48 PM, Matthias Merkel wrote:
>>> I already tried to say to him. You're right.
>>>
>>>
>>>     ---- On Di, 21 Jun 2016 20:46:42 +0200 *josh at postgresql.org * 
>>> wrote ----
>>>
>>>     On 06/20/2016 08:29 PM, Fei Teng wrote:
>>>     > 3. A lot of end users removed the badge of our product
>>>     > 4. A lot of developers who develop based on our product removed the
>>>     > badge of our product and they do NOT share their code with us
>>>
>>>     I thought we weren't approving any badgeware licenses? If that's the
>>>     case, why are we still talking to Fei Teng?
>>>
>>>     --Josh Berkus
>>>     _______________________________________________
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>>>     License-review at opensource.org 
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>>>     
>>> https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-review
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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