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

Nigel T nigel.2048 at gmail.com
Wed Dec 11 18:48:50 UTC 2019


Van,

What issue do you have with not requiring the downstream user to provide
any user data that the original CAL licensed software doesn't make
available to the non-technical user?

If the original software doesn't provide a user accessible export feature
then there should be no downstream requirement for the user to provide any
user data.  You cannot assume that the user is a developer so the assertion
that they can just do a SQL dump or some other convoluted technical
mechanism is an excessive burden to place on users.

You can make it a requirement that any modification that adds user data
must be accompanied by a user accessible export feature of some kind.

Nigel

On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 12:37 PM VanL <van.lindberg at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Nigel,
>
> You are correct that the CAL does not mandate any particular functionality
> or method of compliance. History has shown that mandating a particular
> technical structure is unwise. Instead, the CAL simply describes what is
> required and uses the standard tool of open source licensing - the denial
> or termination of the license - to motivate compliance.
>
> You can argue that the CAL may be difficult to comply with in some cases,
> or that ot would not be well-suited to some types of applications. But
> those are not marks against the CAL. Different licenses address different
> needs.
>
> Thanks,
> Van
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 9:13 AM Nigel T <nigel.2048 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The bar is being moved here.  CAL does not require that the software be
>> able to import any data to get back to a running state...or (according to
>> Van) even need to export any data so a SQL dump is acceptable in meeting
>> the CAL requirement.
>>
>> So the user's "ability to get back to the place they were" probably
>> requires that they re-enter the data and re-doing any associations by hand
>> anyway. The data doesn't even have to be in any kind of layout to
>> facilitate re-entering the data.  Here you go...a SQL dump of your data,
>> enjoy.  I could even just create a single PNG of all the data and meet CAL
>> requirements.
>>
>> If the objective really is for the user to be able to get back to where
>> they were with a clean copy of the system then CAL should specify that CAL
>> software should support import/export round tripping of user data.
>>
>> In any case, the operation of the software is not dependent on the user's
>> customer data being present or your software is broken.
>>
>> I take it you do not like the suggestion that the downstream software
>> user is under no obligation to provide any customer data that the original
>> code did not provide as export?
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 12:37 AM Henrik Ingo <henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, 11 Dec 2019, 03:29 VanL, <van.lindberg at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The use or operation of the software is not dependent on user’s
>>>>> customer provided data being present...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This is not really correct, if you think about it.
>>>>
>>>> I don't think it is debatable to say that some (most?) software works
>>>> differently in the presence of particular data. The subroutines the run are
>>>> different; the displayed interface may be different; the state of the
>>>> software is *different.* Because the accumulated state is different, the
>>>> actual functioning of the software, as experienced by the user, is
>>>> different.
>>>>
>>>> I agree that the user has the ability to get back to the place where
>>>> they were by re-entering the data and re-doing any associations made. But
>>>> the latent potential for the software to work the same way is not the same
>>>> as the software actually functioning the exact same way.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Taking this argument further, the user can also rewrite all the code
>>> from scratch, and therefore all copyleft licenses (and open source) are
>>> unnecessary in general.
>>>
>>> Henrik
>>>
>>>>
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