[License-review] For Approval: Twente License

[Anand Chowdhary]

Thank you for your feedback, Larry! I truly value it.

I understand your concerns, especially with the ambition, which I have since scaled down. As you would see in the license page (twente.me), the license is essentially a fork of MIT with the added compliance to not collecting any personal information without consent, or sharing it.

I also agree that #6 is ambiguous which is why I decided to submit it, even though I see now that the license may not be OSI-approved after all. However, I wanted to take my chances since it doesn’t directly discriminate any group as long as they comply with the license.

I would love to hear more feedback about this, thanks again!
On 5 Feb 2019, 22:34 +0100, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com>, wrote:
> Anand Chowdhary wrote about the proposed Twente License:
> > ... compliant with certain guidelines, primarily respecting privacy, human rights, and other European values
>
> Personally, I respect and admire those values. I wish that the US, with a different President and Congress, would pursue those values also!
>
> But compliance with values is the function of laws rather than a software license. We recognize that limitation in OSD #6 regarding the (somewhat ambiguous) "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor". [1] Our governments adopt protective regulations about "values". (At least recently, Europe often does, the US doesn't as often.) But "privacy, human rights, and other ... values" are far more ambitious than software can protect with its mere open source licenses.
>
> By the way, please don't call them "European" values. We are in each country entitled to our own values.... That is why you can't restrict a license based on fields of endeavor or values.
>
> /Larry
>
> [1] OSD # 6: The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
>
>
> From: License-review <license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org> On Behalf Of Anand Chowdhary
> Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 1:05 PM
> To: license-review at lists.opensource.org
> Subject: [License-review] For Approval: Twente License
>
> > Name: Twente License
> >
> > Rationale: The MIT license is the most popular open-source license out there. It's used by millions of projects and helps the community by providing open access to code, so that developers can build on top of the hard work done by others. However, in light of recent events where companies are financially motivated to disregard individual privacy, developers should choose wisely who can use their intellectual property or codebases.
> >
> > Distinguish: Twente License is free and permissive—just like the MIT license—but it adds a clause where the end product in which Twente licensed code can be used has to be compliant with certain guidelines, primarily respecting privacy, human rights, and other European values.
> >
> > Legal review: I’ve had a lawyer informally have a look, but no in-depth legal review has been conducted.
> >
> > Proliferation category: Other/Miscellaneous licenses (5)
> >
> > Relevant links:
> > https://github.com/AnandChowdhary/twente-license
> > https://twente.me/anand
> >
> > Please find attached the license in plain text.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Anand Chowdhary
> > Chief Executive Officer
> > Oswald Labs
> >
> > NL +31 644691056
> > IN +91 9555297989
> > ceo at oswaldlabs.com
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