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

[Eric Schultz]

On Fri, Oct 19, 2018 at 7:41 PM Eliot Horowitz <eliot at mongodb.com> wrote:
>
> SSPL does not violate OSD 6.  It allows the Program to be used by
> anyone for any purpose. If section 13 is triggered, there is a
> copyleft condition that must be complied with. The SSPL is like many
> other open source licenses, whose terms will naturally apply
> differently to different groups of licensees. For example, most open
> source licenses apply different conditions to software distributors
> and software users -- not because the license discriminates, but
> because those licensees choose to do different things with the
> software. SSPL’s copyleft condition may require some users to release
> more software than others, but that is only because those users made
> different choices as to how to deploy the SSPL software.  The license
> does not set facially different rules for any field of endeavor.

Eliot,

Respectfully, you never addressed the concern about downstream users.
Copyleft software does provide rights to the users of direct users of
copylefted software and the OSD5 says "No discrimination against
persons or groups". Two different users, both who use the software,
receive different rights depending on whether they are paying solely
or primarily for use of the SSPL software via a network. Can you
explain how that doesn't violate OSD 5, "No Discrimination Against
Persons or Groups"? To my reading, it facially does discriminate based
upon whether a downstream user pays an upstream user.

Again, really disappointed this license drafting process seems focused
on developer exclusively. Even if this restriction were justified for
development and big business users (which under the OSD, it's not),
such as the ones MongoDB Inc sells to, I believe it'd be rather
shortsighted of the OSI to not consider that this license WILL be used
by other software. Some of the software will interact directly with
end-users and those end-users will be able to buy more access to their
source code based upon the SSPL. I appreciate that open source and
free software are big business but the definitions of either don't
focus on that, they focus on the rights that a user receives.

I will reiterate: this license should be withdrawn and a community
process, including end-users, should evaluate if any license which
expands copy-left can be created which meets the OSD and FSD.

Eric

-- 
Eric Schultz, Developer and FLOSS Advocate
wwahammy.com
eric at wwahammy.com
@wwahammy
Pronouns: He/his/him