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

[Kyle Mitchell]

On 2017-10-23 18:10, Bruce Perens wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 5:55 PM, Kyle Mitchell <kyle at kemitchell.com> wrote:
> >
> > I mention these folks and their views, and plead to have
> > them considered, because the matter of what comes to mind
> > when people see and say "open source" isn't a contest of
> > rigor, or first claim, or internal consistency.  Numbers are
> > relevant.  So is audience.  So is a certain prestige amongst
> > developer-kind.
> >
>
> Well, this is a point that I believe needs to be made to everyone concerned
> with _marketing_ the idea of Open Source: We won. We are so pervasive in
> industry that it is scary, and industry is actually feeling the negative
> effects of software monoculture upon security because of the pervasive use
> of a number of popular Open Source programs and the need to keep updated
> and to push those updates out to customers (which is surprisingly difficult
> to get some companies to accept). Rather than evangelize to outsiders about
> Open Source, we now need to evangelize to insiders about how to keep safe.
>
> Having won, the only thing we can do to further increase use of Open Source
> is to stop being as Open as we presently are. Which would, of course,
> ultimately be self-defeating.
>
> Of course, we can fill in some number of smaller enterprises that don't
> have the message yet. But if you are expecting large, further increases in
> uptake of Open Source to match those in the recent past, go work on Open
> Science and Open Publication instead.

I agree that "Open Source" won, in a marketing sense.  But
that is a very peculiar, narrow, and dangerous form of
victory.  The phrase is popular and perception is positive,
even suspiciously so.  But name recognition is not name
integrity.  There may be a good feeling about "Open Source"
in the air, but that doesn't mean "Open Source" means what
we'd like it to mean, or that OSI has control of it.
Rather, it means "Open Source" is daily a more tempting
linguistic grab ball for all manner of causes, adjacent and
far-flung.

"Open Source won" in terms of adoption, and I agree that
it's high time to revisit the single-minded focus on driving
use.  But I'd strongly _disagree_ that "Open Source won" in
any values sense, as you and I have used "values".  If
there's a "victory", it's been among proprietary software
firms---most especially proprietary software-service
firms---that now serve the majority of computer users with
software they cannot inspect, study, or change.  As a
scouting combine for young developers.  As a rainforest to
scour for the odd, industrially promising specimen.  As a
dev-time group-buy demilitarized zone.  Again, real
victories.  But limited ones.

As as with any marketing victory, much of Open Source's
marketing success came about by explaining what "Open
Source" already meant, at least practically, but as much or
more again by opportunistic stretching and sliding of its
meaning over all manner of things companies already liked
and wanted.  All to your point on "Open Source" as a
methodology.  And permissive licensing.  And the rise of
(c)(6) foundations.  And the rush on education.  We could
both go on.

Returning briefly to L0-R---which I'm otherwise happy to
leave behind for conversation like this, anytime---I'd like
to point out that, fundamentally, it wouldn't make any sense
to write a more exacting copyleft license at a time when
"Open Source" wasn't riding high.  Copyleft is a deal.
Strong copyleft drives a harder bargain.  Setting out Open
Source reciprocity in very succinct terms is a very direct
way of putting light on the distinction between marketing
victory and values defeat.  And, I think, of rectifying it.

...

You mentioned Open Science and Open Publishing, and I can't
help it:  Have a look at https://publicdomainchronicle.org,
another project of mine, launched earlier this month.  It's
my foundation-funded "port" of the permissive open source
licensing experience to science, where patent looms largest.
And for the record, the code's Apache-2.0!

-- 
Kyle Mitchell, attorney // Oakland // (510) 712 - 0933