[License-review] For Approval: Twente License

Tue Feb 5 23:08:13 UTC 2019

The OSI board is the entity that issues rejection, but they listen to this
group. Sorry, I concur this violates OSD #6. That was written with the
example of an anti-apartheid license which remained in force after the end
of apartheid and discriminated against innocent people.

On Tue, Feb 5, 2019, 14:30 Anand Chowdhary <anandchowdhary at gmail.com wrote:

> Hi Eric,
>
> Thank you for your response. I agree with you 100% and think we can come
> up with a better way to encourage corporate responsibility. I will
> definitely brainstorm this with my team and come back to you for your
> valuable opinion.
>
> As for Twente License, I understand a rejection for OSI approval.
>
> Anand
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 5 Feb 2019, at 23:04, Eric Schultz <eric at wwahammy.com> wrote:
>
> 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>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Eric Schultz, Developer and FLOSS Advocate
> wwahammy.com
> eric at wwahammy.com
> @wwahammy
> Pronouns: He/his/him
>
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