[License-review] For Approval: Convertible Free Software License, Version 1.1 (C-FSL v1.1)

[Smith, McCoy]

>>From: License-review [mailto:license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org] On Behalf Of Brendan Hickey
>>Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 3:17 AM
>>To: License submissions for OSI review <license-review at lists.opensource.org>
>>Subject: Re: [License-review] For Approval: Convertible Free Software License, Version 1.1 (C-FSL v1.1)


>>This license should be rejected as a crayon license. It's so frought with issues that I can't imagine it underwent serious legal review. An environmental lawyer can tell you all about wetlands law, but they're scarcely more qualified than me to assert that a license is well formed.

>>Brendan


I dislike the term “crayon license” as it seems fairly pejorative, but I share the skepticism about the drafting rigor of this license.  Just after a quick look through of this I see the following problems which make the license legally fatal (or so legally problematic I think most lawyers would avoid code using this license):


·         Section 3. “It is your obligation that the changed version of your sources will be available to the public for free within the time frame of a month at least if there is no undue hindrance by the authors to make it available.”  This would implicate private changes.  As I think we have debated in the past (I believe wrt LZPL), this would remove Freedom Zero rights from users, which I think generally is a bad idea, causes massive compliance issues for users, and is outside of the spirit – if not the letter – of the OSD.

·         Section 4. “You are obligated to provide sufficient data, tools and utilities so that a functionally equivalent object code can be compiled merely from programs and work licensed either under any open source license approved by opensource.org or under C-FSL. The given data and utilities for obtaining functionally equivalent results need to be available to the public for free.”  This goes beyond the requirements of GPL in the obligation to provide tools, as GPL allows one to rely upon publicly available tools.  The way I read this, you need to provide the tool chain (even if the user already has it or can readily get it) with any distribution.  That’s also a huge compliance issue.

·         Section 5. “When applying changes to the source code you need to leave your name, your email address and the date of your modifications so that other people may contact you. If a contributor should not have a steady access to the internet or a satisfying access to an emailing service he may leave another way by which he can be contacted.”  This seems to fall afoul of lots of privacy law and possibly GDPR (note this is a positive obligation, not a negative requirement a la “you may not remove identification information” per many OSI approved licenses).

·         Section 6. “If your program has a graphical user interface the whole C-FSL license must be referenced via the GUI. Otherwise a plain text copy of this license needs to be given and packed alongside the distributed product. A complete reference to the base product including email address and web presence must be referenced via the GUI for any GUI program that is a fork of another C-FSL program. If your program has a comprehensive help, manual or info page and is a fork a similar reference to the base product must be given there.”  This looks like badgeware to me, which most users find disfavorable and a big compliance issue.

·         Section 7.  As others have already stated, I believe this violates OSD 5 as it discriminates between “original authors” and subsequent authors in the rights conveyed.

·         Section 8.  “You must assert that the right to use, modify, generate object code and distribute any software under C-FSL will not be infringed by patent claims or similar law. If you modify a work under C-FSL so that it will knowingly rely on a patent license then it means that you will thereby grant to extend the patent license to any recipient of the work. Every contributor grants by the act of contributing to a work under C-FSL a non-exclusive, worldwide and royalty-free patent license to any prospective contributor or user of the given work applicable to all his 'essential patent claims'. The essential patent claims comprise all claims owned or controlled by the contributor.”  The first sentence appears to a broad warranty against any 3rd party patent infringement; this is something that very few distributors would agree to (and is contrary to the general handling of warranty and indemnity in Section 1.  The second sentence does not, per GPLv2 and GPLv3 (which have similar language) provide a description of what one can/must do if they do not have the right to “extend the patent license.”  The definition of “essential patent claims” is a unbounded patent license to the distributor’s entire portfolio with no boundaries as to scope.

·         Section 10.  Others have pointed out the jurisdiction and venue problems with this provision, but I will point out a couple of hypotheticals to tease them out:  a) what if the “first mentioned original author” is deceased, or cannot be located? b) what is venue if the “first mentioned original author” has a different “hometown” from his/her “location”?  c) what if they “first mentioned original author” moves, dies, or is not able to be located after suit is filed?


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