[License-review] For approval: The Cryptographic Autonomy License (Beta 4)

[Nigel T]

The fact is, unlike any other FOSS license, under this license a user who does not modify any code is still not going to know if they are compliant or not.  

In every other license, if they provide source they know they are compliant.  Here, if the original code licensed under CAL is not fully compliant with 4.2 then they are never going to be compliant unless they pay someone to make it compliant within 60 days.

That’s not “hypothetical”.  That’s just the way the license is written.

> On Dec 6, 2019, at 5:48 PM, VanL <van.lindberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Nigel,
> 
> Let me start with the following:
> 
>> Answers that states with "as a general rule" or "your example is underspecified" means Alice has to spend lots of effort to make sure that the software complies with 4.2 even if she has made zero changes to that software.  
> [snip]
> 
> I can talk about the license, but one of the things that seems to be a persistent desire here is for analysis of hypotheticals that aren't based in any concrete situation. As with any situation where we are talking about rights in software (or data), the analysis *usually* ends up being straightforward when the exact facts are known.

The analysis requirement is excessively onerous for users of CAL licensed code to determine if they are compliant with 4.2 except in the most simple or benign case.

> But repeatedly in this process, I have attempted to make assumptions based upon preexisting knowledge, most likely implementations, etc, but have then been sharply criticized because my response does not allow for the whole range of possibilities.

You refuse to address what happens if the original code is not 4.2 compliant.

> Thus, I try to answer as well as I can, but I am trying to resist the temptation to guess when the examples are underspecified. And this is why:
> 
>> Bob has preexisting rights to US census data records because it is public information.  Alice has spent time and money cataloging that information so it could be found in a name search.  The service provides linkage from people in his tree to the historical US census data. 
> 
> This adds new facts. It possibly changes the analysis. And it is still underspecified.
>  
>> What needs to be provided?
> 
> The User Data:
> 
> “User Data” means any data that is an input to or an output from the Work, where the presence of the data is necessary for substantially identical use of the Work in an equivalent context chosen by the Recipient, and where the Recipient has an existing ownership interest, an existing right to possess, or where the data has been generated by, for, or has been assigned to the Recipient.

All you did here was repeat your license text.

> Thanks,
> Van
> 
> 
> 
>>  
>   
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