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

[Josh Berkus]

On 10/23/2018 01:57 PM, Brendan Hickey wrote:
> Bruce,
> 
> While your intent is worth considering, we needn't fall into the trap of
> originalism. The OSD as promulgated over the past twenty or so years
> doesn't specify that the titles are merely descriptive. With the passage
> of time so too passes any authorial privilege.
> 
> McCoy's understanding of the text as providing examples rather than
> limitations hardly seems implausible. For my own part, I understood the
> OSD headings as statements of principle with the text serving as dicta.
> In the case of OSD #9, the text calls out mere aggregates while leaving
> out non-derivative works.

Agreed.  The spirit of the rule is well-encapsulated by the title.

Where I find SSPL to violate OSD9 isn't so much cloud services, but the
assertion that the SSPL applies to 3rd-party code tested, debugged, or
packaged using SSPL code.   While that's not "distributing with" it's
definitely "applies to other software".

This question is particularly important because there are a number of
non-OSS licenses in the Javascript community that also make this claim
(you test your code using my code, it's under my license). This is the
reason why the FSF has been careful to define GPL licenses as not
applying on mere use, since that's a minefield and will definitely lead
to license ragnarok.

I propose that we update OSD9 with these additional examples.


-- 
Josh Berkus