[License-review] For Legacy Approval: OpenLDAP Public License

[Josh Berkus]

On 8/16/19 2:10 PM, Brendan Hickey wrote:
> 
> We should regard upgrade clauses skeptically, particularly when the
> license steward is the only user of the license. This language could be
> used to generate a proprietary fork if the steward saw fit. The GPL at
> least claims that revisions will be in the spirit of the original, AGPL
> linking clause notwithstanding.

I don't think that's significantly different. "in the spirit" is
subjectively interpretatable, and can mean whatever the issuing entity
wants it to mean.

One key to this license, though, is that it really doesn't make sense
without a nonprofit foundation as the issuing entity.  I think that's
something we can assert for all updatability clauses, really.  With
NGOs, we can generally trust the original NGO to have the public
interest at heart.  With individuals & for-profit corporations, we
really can't.

Now, we can't enforce that except via notes on the license at
opensource.org, of course.

-- 
Josh Berkus