[License-review] For Approval: The Cryptographic Autonomy License

[Richard Fontana]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 11:36 PM Pamela Chestek <pamela at chesteklegal.com> wrote:

> I don't see this as even slightly different from the GPL in reach, at
> least if the S. Ct. concludes that APIs are copyrightable to some
> extent. Dalvik was largely written from scratch but, to the extent it
> implements the Java APIs, it is an infringement, the corollary being
> that if lawfully made it would be a derivative work of Java. Have I
> erred in my reasoning somewhere? I'm just trying to find some rationale
> for why this is any different from A/GPL and I haven't seen it yet.

The difference is that I am confident the FSF, the GPL license
steward, will condemn and disavow this interpretation of their
license, although that won't necessarily stop other licensors from
trying to take advantage of it. It's different from the actual
pre-(and also post-) Oracle v. Google practice of using, interpreting
and complying with A/GPL.

> As Scott pointed out, scope is what it is (or what the S. Ct. says it
> is),

But, leaving existing licenses aside, for a new license, it's the
licensor's/license drafter's choice whether to extend copyleft to
interface copyright. I currently believe no FOSS license should do so.
Perhaps future FOSS licenses should be clarifying that any copyright
in interfaces will *not* be subject to otherwise-applicable copyleft
requirements.

Richard