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

[Josh Berkus]

On 12/11/19 11:48 AM, VanL wrote:
> Hi Nigel,
> 
> The core issue is that I don't think it is appropriate to dictate the
> mechanism. All of your suggestions boil down to, "add the technical
> requirement that the software does [X]." I think that the pressure of
> compliance will make the type of ease-of-use features you are suggesting
> desirable. That is enough. I don't want to mandate them.

I don't think you understand Nigel's argument at all.

Here's an example:

1) You create some software that has no data export functionality and
license it under the CAL.

2) I use your software as the basis for some other application.

3) I am now compelled, under the terms of the license, to *write* a user
data export feature that didn't exist in the software that I copied from
you under the CAL.

4) As a corollary, this means that if I am not a programmer (and don't
have $$$$), I cannot use the software you created in (1).

While the above may be OK with you, it would be an unprecedented step in
the history of OSS licenses, and as such is likely to create significant
barriers to approval.

Nigel is suggesting language to make the data export requirement
symmetrical; that is, that downstream users are required to preserve or
expand any data export features present in the software they copied.

-- 
Josh Berkus