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

[Henrik Ingo]

On Fri, Dec 13, 2019 at 4:23 PM Nigel T <nigel.2048 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 13, 2019 at 2:53 AM Henrik Ingo <henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi>
> wrote:
>
>> Just to be clear, I of course agree that there can exist software that
>> would not allow easy export of user data in a CAL compliant manner.
>>
>
> If software CAN exist that is not CAL compliant and licensed under CAL
> then it's a compliance time bomb for every downstream user.  Why should
> this be approved?
>

I might be completely missing your point now... But just to answer the
question as written: Are you also of the opinion that BSD and GPL licenses
should not have been approved?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_Laboratories,_Inc._v._Berkeley_Software_Design,_Inc
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gpl-violations.org

etc...


> But I think the intent is for 4.2 to be hard to be compliant with and I'll
> get to that below.
> Gosh, I wonder what companies might want an OSI approved license like that?
>
>
Ok, so your real argument is simply that we should not approve this license
because you are convinced Van's client has bad intentions?

But I would want to use it for hobby projects. I have no bad intentions -
at least not commercially motivated ones. Does that make it better? Or
would it be better if we just focus on the license text without classifying
participants here based on assumed moral standards?


> A little asymmetry in an OSS license can be okay but you need to carefully
> look at how that asymmetry can be abused before approval.
>
>
Asymmetry exists when a single person or corporation owns all the rights in
a copylefted piece of software. In the case of GPL and AGPL I wouldn't
describe that as "a little asymmetry". It's a very strong asymmetry.

With projects where ownership isn't pooled to a single entity, (e.g. Linux)
the same copyleft license can be a strong defense that creates balance in
the community and prevents a single entity from dominating the project.

It's easy to see how CAL could become popular with non-profit and other
community projects that want to ensure openness of data in the age of large
SaaS and social media companies who like to hoard user data. The open
source community will benefit from having this license in its toolkit.

henrik


-- 
henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi
+358-40-5697354        skype: henrik.ingo            irc: hingo
www.openlife.cc

My LinkedIn profile: http://fi.linkedin.com/pub/henrik-ingo/3/232/8a7
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