[License-review] Submission of the Upstream Compatibility License v1.0 (UCL-1.0) for approval

[Gervase Markham]

On 25/10/16 04:22, Nigel T wrote:
> It's submitted as a special purpose license primarily because the
> designed for use case is open sourcing an existing closed source
> product.  The dual licensing with Apache for upstream gives that
> developer the commercial safety of a strong copyleft release (commercial
> competitors can't simply take their features and fold it into their own
> product) without the hassle of herding a CLA process to keep
> compatibility between the open and closed versions.

And it's precisely this use (many would say "abuse") of copyleft to give
special privileges to one particular party which is opposed by many in
the free software world. The fact that it's a hassle to do does not mean
the OSI needs to make it easier.

Mozilla has a policy of not signing CLAs with commercial entities where
the software concerned is under a copyleft license, because we don't
believe it's right to give away special privileges to one entity like
this. If this license were approved, we would have to change our general
"OK to use" licensing policy from "anything OSI-approved" to "anything
OSI-approved apart from the Upstream Compatibility License".

Gerv