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

[Josh Berkus]

On 10/17/2018 03:55 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 17, 2018 at 01:03:07PM +0200, Josh Berkus wrote:
>> On 10/16/2018 10:36 PM, Rob Landley wrote:
> 
>>>> It was a 2 clause OpenBSD license linked as "License Template" from the
>>>> top of http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html with half a sentence removed
>>>> (ala https://github.com/landley/toybox/commit/ee86b1d8e25c).
>>>
>>> Here is where I got the license text from, off of OpenBSD's website:
>>>
>>> https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/share/misc/license.template?rev=HEAD
>>
>> Ah, OK. I was going off Richard's statement that it was derived from ISC
>> and had no textual relationship to the BSD license.  If it has a textual
>> relationship, then I withdraw my objection.
> 
> It does not have a textual relationship to the BSD license (at least
> beyond what I'd consider paraphrase). It's the ISC license. At some
> point OpenBSD recommended use of the ISC license.

So, this is 0BSD because OpenBSD likes it?  Tenuous.

Here's my problem with that: any license *user* would reasonably assume
that a license called "Zero-Clause BSD" was derived from the standard 2
or 3 clause BSD license, and this one is not.  It was certainly what I
originally assumed until Richard flagged it.  This would be a confusion
of names that, to my knowledge, we have no precedent for.  Mind you, we
also have no precedent for telling a license author what their license
should be called.

The precedent we do have is The PostgreSQL License.  This legacy license
is "functionally equivalent" to the 2-clause BSD license, and further is
used on software that has its origin at UC Berkeley.  However, like
FPL/0BSD, it is not textually derived from the BSD license and thus
carries a name with no "BSD" in it.

As a strawman argument, imagine that someone brought us a license they
called the "freeGPL" license, but it was neither derived from the GPL,
nor owned by the FSF.  Would we approve it under that name?

Now, this case isn't that extreme, and there are probably grounds for
saying a connection with OpenBSD and "functional equivalency" is enough.
 At the least, though, I'd like to hear from some other major
users/advocates of the 2/3BSD license that they have no objection (such
as the FreeBSD council, for example).


-- 
Josh Berkus