[License-review] Approval: Open Innovation License v2.0

[McCoy Smith]

“consequential deontology” is likely to be construed as oxymoronic: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/

 

Given that deontology would likely be construed by a court (as according to its dictionary definition) as imposing a moral duty, or obligation, this license still would likely be considered to include a legally-binding restriction on the license itself, thus violating the OSD.

 

There really doesn’t seem to be much change here from version 1 other than rearrangement, so many of the same problems (other than the use of the acronym “OIN” in version 1) would seem to remain.

 

You really need to get someone with some level of experience in clear license or contract drafting to work on this, as it very likely is going to get rid of a lot of the grammatical and syntactic problems this license, in both versions, has, as well as taking out terminology like “consequential deontology” and “at goodwill” which are making this license unclear.

 

From: License-review <license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org> On Behalf Of Andrew Nassief
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2020 2:00 PM
To: License submissions for OSI review <license-review at lists.opensource.org>
Subject: [License-review] Approval: Open Innovation License v2.0

 

Hello, I have made a version 2.0 of my license on GitHub:

https://github.com/StarkDrones/OPNL/tree/main/Version%202

 

The text is as follows:


The Open Innovation License


Version 2, 28th December 2020
Copyright © 2020 Stark Drones Corporation
Copyright © 2020 Andrew Magdy Kamal


Preamble


The Stark Drones Corporation believes at goodwill, to build or release technology for the betterment of humanity. Technology should not be meant with the intention of harming a human being. We believe in a prima facie moral duty through consequential deontology to understand that technology should be within the concept of moral good or outcomes that are morally right and/or ethical. We agree at goodwill to promote the advancement of humanity and civilization as a whole. We agree to a sense of adventurement, edification, and the expansion of the human mind.

Released under the Open Innovation License

Copyright © (YEAR) (Copyright Holder)

This project is licensed under the Open Innovation License. This means any code, file, diagrams, data format, or other innovation containing this license within it can be copied, modified, redistributed, published, or even used for non and/or commercial purposes within the context of this license.


Any code, file, diagrams, data format, or other innovation containing this license is understood to be fully "AS IS", no claims are made in regards to safety, security, warranty, usability, or other form of merchantability and market-readiness. In no events are copyright holders, authors, or publishers are to be held liable for any claims, damage or results from usage of what have been licensed under this license.


The context of this license includes: Keeping this original license text and file verbatim, as well as the copyright notice included in any redistribution of said project. Project is defined as what is using this license. For purposes of context, the copyright notice after the preamble is meant to be modified for whomsoever publishes or releases "any code, file, diagrams, data format, or other innovation", so that they can include their information.

____

Rationale:

I wanted to release this license for a variety of different reasons. Infact, I made many posts in regards to why this license is unique and valuable, and found many developers willing to adapt this license through small innovation challenges. The license was made on the basis of promoting a mission statement on ethical technology within the license as well as not being specific to only software i.e. files, diagrams, data format or any other innovation. 

We also wanted to make sure that the license is adaptable. Many open source licenses require you to put tons of header files for compliance. We wanted to make a license that just requires you to contain the license file in your directory. While many other open source licenses also do that or follow in similar footsteps, we weren't able to find one that met all these unique qualities.

Currently, a big inspiration for this license was the idea of promoting free and open software as well as a mission statement on ethical technologies. We found that many of the big tech companies that are hailed as heroes of open source or doing open source initiatives, built technologies that are harmful to human activity. A technically non-legally enforceable mission statement within an enforceable open source license was the way to go. We also made sure to go out of our way to promote the ideals of open source and free and redistributive software.

Distinguish:

I looked at a variety of different open source licenses. The standard being MIT, then BSD+Patent, ZLib, CDDL, CPAL, CPL, CAL, BSL, and the AFL license. I feel like MIT, ZLIB, and the Boost licenses focus on redistribution and code. Those are the standards. The open patent licenses and other licenses focus on derived original work. However, none of them tried going to the same extent I wanted in terms of being specific in regards to data formats or general consensus and mission. I believe this is an important thing to take into account.

Legal review:

Currently I have submitted this to SPDX as well for review through their GitHub/Website. However, the review time to get approval and receive SPDX identifiers can be many months. I submitted in November and decided to submit to OSI while I wait. As for reviewing the context of language myself and actual legal review, I have thought out reviews through my own legal council and self judgement as a researcher familiar with these types of languages.

*I want to emphasize that after hearing the core concerns regarding OPNL (Version #1), I have decided to create the preamble variation as suggested. I still believe in the full merits of the first version, but wanted to simplify both the license and OSI approval process.

Proliferation category: 

I don't necessarily need to be in a Proliferation category as of now, as many of the licenses on your site are not in a category. However, I would eventually want to get into the Licenses that are popular and widely used or with strong communities category.

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