[License-review] Approval: Server Side Public License, Version 1 (SSPL v1)

[Luis Villa]

On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 9:08 AM Kyle Mitchell <kyle at kemitchell.com> wrote:

> As for distinguishing network software development from
> other kinds of software, plenty of approved copyleft
> licenses discriminate among ways of creating new software
> with old.  For example, the weak copyleft licenses, LGPL,
> MPL, EPL.  Arguably, so do the original, strong, GPL-style
> licenses, now that we have network copyleft.  GPLv3
> "discriminates" against proprietary development generally,
> and among those, privileges developers who distribute
> software over those who provide it as services.
>

GPL v3 also discriminates against those who distribute User Products,
burdening them with extra obligations. I don't recall anyone seriously
suggesting at the time that this was a violation of OSD 6, though I'd be
curious to revisit the archives in my copious free time :(

(GPL v3 also arguably discriminates against those who wish to exercise
their legal rights as granted by laws that implement anti-circumvention
provisions of the '96 WIPO treaty, though that's a weaker argument.)


> Copyleft is inherently discriminatory.  For reasons I set
> out in my post at the section linked below, that kind of
> discrimination evidently isn't the kind 5 and 6 prohibit.
> Where developers have a choice to make their code free or
> nonfree, copyleft exists precisely to encourage and require
> the free choice.
>
>
> https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/05/OSD-Copyleft-Regulation.html#discrimination
>

+1 to this. Copyleft has always been an odd fit with OSD 5 and 6,
particularly 6. This discussion will be healthiest if we can grapple with
that honestly instead of tying ourselves in knots to deny it.

Luis
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