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

[Jim Jagielski]

Well said. And if I had any standing, I'd vote +1 in response.

> On Oct 17, 2018, at 2:52 AM, Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn at ebb.org> wrote:
> 
> Richard Fontana came by IRC channels to find me today noting:
>>> * fontana is curious to know bkuhn's thoughts on the MongoDB license
> 
> I missed him, but later opened license-review folder and found three posts
> from him on the thread, so I will simply reply to his request here.
> 
> I frankly think the OSI should not waste its time reviewing a license like
> this.  This is not simply another slightly-differently-worded,
> obviously-Open-Source highly-permissive license that needs an OSI rubber
> stamp.  By contrast, MongoDB's license (and their submission to OSI on the
> same day of publication) is a campaign by a well-resourced for-profit company
> to reframe what copyleft is.
> 
> A decade ago, the Affero GPL, authored by a small charity, was hotly debated
> in the community, and there was lobbying to oppose its approval by OSI.
> OSI took many months to decide about AGPL (November to
> March), and while I don't think license committee discussion of that era are
> archived publicly, I assume it was a complex topic for consideration, even
> though Affero GPL had been promulgated in draft form for comment for years
> before, and discussed rather extensively as part of FSF's public and lengthy
> GPLv3 process.  In other words, even after many years of public discussion to
> consider whether the Affero clause fit the OSD, the OSI still needed months
> to think about it one last time.
> 
> MongoDB had no public process for this license.  Experts in copyleft
> licensing were not asked for input before the license was officially
> released.  The OSI was (apparently) not included early in the drafting
> process as OSI has been when other copylefts (e.g., GPL, MPL).
> Moreover, as others have mentioned in this thread, this license is
> essentially a modified version of a license under the purview of another
> steward who publicly urges license drafters to *not* do what MongoDB did.
> 
> Copyleft licenses are a different breed, and there is clever (and
> difficult-to-interpret) drafting in the OSD to allow copyleft licenses to
> qualify.  I think it's totally reasonable that OSI needs a higher standard
> for copylefts than other types of licenses.
> 
> Furthermore, I think it is completely reasonable for the OSI to reject a
> license review request not necessarily for the content of the license, but
> on grounds that a public process of comment and discussion were not used to
> draft a license containing a major policy change in FOSS licensing.  The
> copyleft community has evolved from a single drafter vetting the drafts
> through a single law firm (as RMS did for the Emacs Public License, GPLv1
> and GPLV2), to a community process.  copyleft-next should be the standard,
> and license stewards of copyleft licenses should be required to explain
> why they *didn't* follow a process similar to copyleft-next's process as
> part of their application to OSI.
> 
> I therefore suggest the OSI ask MongoDB to withdraw its submission, and ask
> MongoDB to go back and engage in a public comment and drafting process.
> --
> Bradley M. Kuhn
> 
> Pls. support the charity where I work, Software Freedom Conservancy:
> https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
> 
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