[License-review] OSD #9 would not make SSPL OSD-incompliant

Tue Oct 23 19:58:05 UTC 2018

Bruce Perens wrote:

> The title of each definition is a summary necessarily limited by its length. The definition is the meat, and unfortunately I did not write it in a way that would apply to software that is not distributed.

Bruce, please don't apologize for not entirely foreseeing the future. You did great! :-) Several of us clarified your oversight in our own OSI-approved licenses. For example, OSL 3.0 expressly says "distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work and Derivative Works to the public," and it separately defines "External Deployment" in a very specific, network-oriented, way. We covered for your oversight. Our licenses take precedence.

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen

Rosenlaw ( <http://www.rosenlaw.com/> www.rosenlaw.com) 

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From: License-review <license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org> On Behalf Of Bruce Perens
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2018 12:29 PM
To: License submissions for OSI review <license-review at lists.opensource.org>
Subject: Re: [License-review] OSD #9 would not make SSPL OSD-incompliant

The title of each definition is a summary necessarily limited by its length. The definition is the meat, and unfortunately I did not write it in a way that would apply to software that is not distributed.

I'm very sorry.

On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 12:24 PM Smith, McCoy <mccoy.smith at intel.com <mailto:mccoy.smith at intel.com> > wrote:

From: License-review [mailto:license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org <mailto:license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org> ] On Behalf Of Bruce Perens
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2018 12:15 PM
To: License submissions for OSI review <license-review at lists.opensource.org <mailto:license-review at lists.opensource.org> >
Subject: [License-review] OSD #9 would not make SSPL OSD-incompliant

Folks,

The OSD terms were not written for software-as-a-service. OSD #9 very clearly states

The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.

Since software-as-a-service software is not distributed, OSD #9 doesn't apply. Sorry. The document was written for another time and I could not predict today's conditions.

    Thanks

    Bruce

Isn’t this OSD 9:  “License Must Not Restrict Other Software”?

The part you quote seems to be explanatory of the definition, but not necessarily limiting.  I’ve been drafting a mail to license-discuss on OSD 9 and how I think it ought to be interpreted, but this seems to be an important question: what is the *D* part of the OSD.

It also seems curious to me that you can put *more* restrictions on software on non-distributed media than you can on distributed media, but perhaps there is some history of that part of the OSD that I’m unaware of.  To me, the example text you have reproduced is written that way because it inherently assumes Freedom Zero.

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Bruce Perens K6BP - CEO, Legal Engineering
Standards committee chair, license review committee member, co-founder, Open Source Initiative

President, Open Research Institute; Board Member, Fashion Freedom Initiative.

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