[License-review] For Approval: Twente License

Tue Feb 5 22:04:05 UTC 2019

Anand,

Thanks for submitting this.

I think this unambiguously fails OSD #6. I 100% support your goals but it's
not a goal your license can enforce this way and also be open source

Without digressing too far, I'd like to encourage you and others having
social justice goals as well as those feeling their software is exploited
unfairly by large companies to explore how to do discourage bad actors
without messing with licenses. Our community has options already, including
choosing which use-cases to support (or, in the extreme, even removing
features), excluding bad actors from the community, public shaming of bad
actors, refusing to provide voluntary support, etc. Quite honestly, I don't
see much activity in that area which is quite disappointing. It's an area
for ripe for innovation and exploration.

Eric

On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 3:39 PM Anand Chowdhary <anandchowdhary at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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 <https://oswaldlabs.com>
>
>
>
> NL +31 644691056
>
> IN +91 9555297989
>
> ceo at oswaldlabs.com <http://mailto:ceo@oswaldlabs.com>
>
> _______________________________________________
> License-review mailing list
> License-review at lists.opensource.org
>
> http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-review_lists.opensource.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> License-review mailing list
> License-review at lists.opensource.org
>
> http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-review_lists.opensource.org
>

-- 
Eric Schultz, Developer and FLOSS Advocate
wwahammy.com
eric at wwahammy.com
@wwahammy
Pronouns: He/his/him
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20190205/84284d76/attachment.html>