[License-review] For Approval: Rewrite of License Zero Reciprocal Public License

[Bruce Perens]

You sent this to license-review but addressed it to me. Ugh. I did not ask
for this.

I think license-review is entirely exhausted with this discussion and you
are wearing out your welcome as far as I can tell. But I'll put my
sentiment on record just so everyone's clear.

My feeling is that the L0-R license is actually dangerous to users, in that
it purports to take their copyrighted property if they simply run a program
under the L0-R license. Even if no court would let you do that, it puts
your licensors in legal conflict with many users and potentially costs the
users some significant funds to defend themselves.

Users don't generally read licenses, nor should they have to. So, for them
L0-R is sort of like stepping on a land-mine. They did nothing that should
have been a problem, and suddenly they are in a legal conflict with a total
stranger.

You've refused to name any of the potential users for the license, and I
can believe that you've had customers for your law practice, but not that
they are supporting this effort. At the moment I do not believe that this
license has a user community.

If the license actually got used by someone, I'd consider it my duty to
warn users away from the risk it presents.

I can't imagine that OSI has any duty to grant this license or even
tolerate further discussion on their mailing list.

    Bruce



On Sun, Nov 12, 2017 at 9:39 PM, Kyle Mitchell <kyle at kemitchell.com> wrote:

> Bruce,
>
> Lawyer time is worth more than yours in just one, very
> narrow manner of speaking.
>
> You want to run me off. Perhaps you're entitled to. I have
> no idea. I have had as many words on this process, on and
> off this list, from people who apparently ought to know, as
> on the license. It's been like Calvinball. And yes, perhaps
> to your point, if the webmaster had put the rules I'm given
> to understand today on /approval last quarter, I wouldn't
> have signed up to play.
>
> I'm tired, too. But I'm going to answer your latest reading
> of OSD, your bad metaphor, put the "viral license" FUD
> recently exhumed back in its grave. I want a full record
> here, and I'm as energetic as ever for the question. Anyone
> who wants can engage me on it, here or privately. But I'm
> not going to exert myself on prior pace to keep this process
> turning over. Looking back to Richard's summaries, just two
> weeks ago, it's clear we've been southbound since.
>
> Why did I bother? Because when I turn away from this
> process, I will see members of the community call L0-R
> software open source. I will see them talk about selling
> exceptions as an approach to open source sustainability.
> Hell, they said that about the _noncommercial_ license, for
> which I took great pains to project otherwise. But when I
> hear about L0-R, I am also supposed to chide that OSI did
> not approve. First they'll ask who OSI is. If we get past
> that, they'll ask why.
>
> These people grew up doing software on the Web, as I did. If
> I tell them to read between OSD's lines in a tortured,
> selective way, they'll read it for themselves. If I appeal
> to authority, they'll demand reasons. If I tell them it was
> the default outcome of a process, different from what's
> described online, applying a definition held back in
> self-empowering vagueness, and also unenumerated policies,
> they'll wonder if I really came up in their community at
> all. That's not how their community works, and they'll be
> indignant to hear that's how it's defined. I've had a few of
> these conversations already.
>
> I bothered because I put myself between. I'm the one in my
> peer group who knew of, and cared about, OSI approval. L0-R
> came out of conversations with coder friends, but none of
> them asked me to bring it here. Having done so, I wanted to
> bring back something definitive, that would hold up on both
> sides, be it good news or bad.
>
> I took the time, and now that you mention it, I'll never see
> it paid, either. But I see time on interesting community
> matters as a privilege to spend, not any loss to measure up
> and account for. Not everyone who can gets to do this.
>
> And yes, coffee when you can.
>
> Best,
>
> K
>
> --
> Kyle Mitchell, attorney // Oakland // (510) 712 - 0933
> _______________________________________________
> License-review mailing list
> License-review at opensource.org
> https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-review
>
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