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

[Carlo Piana]

On 25/10/2016 18:04, Nigel T wrote:
> My opinion is that the OSI should be more inclusive of differing
> opinions within the FOSS community.  That includes licenses that are
> more friendly for commercial entities to maintain a business model
> that supports both open and closed source.

I find this statement disturbing in that it suggests that OSI is
unfriendly to dual-licensing (I think the objection relates to this kind
of business model more than others that rely on also non-open source).

While I don't claim that review of licenses should live in vitro only
and one should look at the practical effects of the decisions, as I
think we all mean business too, this is just a secondary test compared
to the adherence to the OSD. I personally don't see that the need to
facilitate the business of those using dual-licensing is a sufficiently
compelling reason to relax the tests, although I also believe it is an
entirely legitimate business model.

Can we please address the main issue in a detached way: can a license
create an embedded asymmetry of rights, allowing certain people to do
things that others cannot do and still be called open source? Or does it
create two (or more) legal commons just starting from the license and
thereby discriminating?

In my humble opinion, the fact that -- operatively -- this situation
does nothing more than what a CLA system would create is an
underwhelming argument. We can't take away from copyrights, so those
entitled to do special things under other regimes (original developers,
their employers and assignees) would anyway continue to have special
rights compared to those relying on the license only, nothing to do
about that; but here it's the very license which creates (does it?) this
disparity, and the difference can't be irrelevant, per se.

Is the "special purpose" category sufficient to allow a certain amount
of slack? This is also a question that deserves some attention.

Cheers

Carlo