[License-review] Please rename "Free Public License-1.0.0" to 0BSD.

[Richard Fontana]

On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 07:51:10AM -0500, Rob Landley wrote:

> I have evidence this is negatively impacting the adoption of the license.

(where I think "this" means the current state of affairs in which one
license seems to have two names)

I am actually a mild fan of this license, though frankly I don't like
*either* name at this point, but I do not think it's OSI's job to help
with adoption of particular licenses.

> > I think at this point we should primarily be looking at actual usage
> > of each license name in the real world. Which license name, FPL or
> > 0BSD, is in wider use? If 0BSD (or Zero Clause BSD) is a more widely
> > used name for more actual code, I believe OSI should recognize that as
> > the preferred name.
> 
> The github thread I linked to
> (https://github.com/github/choosealicense.com/issues/464) was titled "Possibly
> add 0BSD license". It was started by someone other than me, without my
> knowledge, using the 0BSD name.

I think this person was intending to use the "0BSD" SPDX identifier,
though they were treating the SPDX identifier *as* a sort of de facto
name (though obviously one that is very close to one of the two
spelled-out names in use for the license). That person has "0BSD" link
to https://opensource.org/licenses/FPL-1.0.0.

> Christian Bundy, the person who submitted the license to OSI, was also asked
> about the naming confusion and his contributions to the thread included the
> quotes "we're comfortable using the 0BSD identifier on our license" and "we'll
> be happy to stand behind any decision that's made (the same way that we support
> SPDX in giving us the "0BSD" identifier)."
> 
> I'm unaware of any real-world use of the "Free Public License" name. Google for
> "free public license" produced no relevant hits on the first 3 pages, but plenty
> of confusion with other licenses on the first page alone, including:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_Free_Public_License
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html

I myself just did some searching and, contrary to what I expected to
find, I think "Free Public License 1.0.0" is in greater use today than
"Zero Clause BSD" (if not "0BSD", which I am seeing as an SPDX
identifier, or a name derived from an SPDX identifier, rather than a
variant form of the name "Zero Clause BSD". Now I guess that's now too
surprising given that OSI approval of the license under the official
name "Free Public License 1.0.0" probably affected adoption *and*
naming of the license.

> Meanwhile Android has shipped toybox ever since Android M,

But toybox doesn't even refer to the license as "Zero Clause BSD",
does it? And of course even license-compliant shipments of Android
products might opt not to publish the license, named or otherwise. 

> and I've been asked
> by multiple people about applying it to their own projects. Here are a couple
> projects using it I'd never heard of before I just googled for "0bsd" and looked
> at the first 2 pages of hits:
> 
> https://nacho4d-nacho4d.blogspot.com/2016/08/license.html
> 
> https://git.janouch.name/p/sensei-raw-ctl/commit/5f4a442a96b3ccdef4f78be4790f09d1b7b995db

(Regarding that second one, I see it as taking the SPDX identifier and
using that as the license name, rather than abbreviating "Zero Clause
BSD" to '0BSD', but maybe the distinction doesn't matter.)
 
> In 2015 I was asked by Samsung to submit the toybox license to SPDX, and did so
> under the "Zero Clause BSD" name I'd used for it since 2013. The SPDX approval
> process had already concluded and assigned the "0BSD" short identifier for it
> before the license was ever submitted to OSI.
> 
> Here's my original submission to SPDX:
> 
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/spdx/2015-June/000974.html
> 
> Here's the timeline putting OSI's actions in context:
> 
> https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/spdx-legal/2015-December/001574.html
> 
> For more information, see the github thread.

Okay, it's obvious that you were calling it "Zero Clause BSD" -- in
discussions of the license, not in any actual usage in source code,
right? -- before Christian Bundy submitted FPL 1.0.0 for OSI approval.

Before I did my own casual web searching and read the referenced
github thread, I was expecting that the only use of the license under
the FPL name was going to be a few projects of Christian Bundy, and
that there would be overwhelming evidence of greater use of the name
Zero Clause BSD. I don't see that evidence. From what I can see, the
license sees little use under *either* name (some projects are using
*both*), but my impression is that there is now greater use of the FPL
name.

So let me revise my earlier thought. I can see how some people might
find it confusing that there are two viable names for the same license
(even though that situation is not unprecedented) and that the SPDX
identifier is entirely unlike the official OSI name of the license. I
can also see how the situation has maybe had some tiny negative effect
on adoption of this license and that any greater use of FPL in the
real world is likely a consequence of the OSI's publishing the license
under that name. Evidence of real world usage is not really helpful here.

I will attempt to contact Christian Bundy to see what he thinks.

Richard