[License-review] ***_SPAM_*** Re: A request for checking the review status of Mulan OWLs v1

[Carlo Piana]

I wholeheartedly agree with the first point and I have made it on several occasions, including for the CC-zero submission and the W3C, falling on deaf ears in the last case.

As per the content license, I have raised the problem here in the first place (I also have raised the software carving out provision, anyway). It is not that we cannot approve license that are content licenses because they are content licenses, but because being content licenses -- unless they are very broad and general,like the CC-zero if it had no patent carving provisions -- are in general not apt to be applied to software and the OSD against which we have to decide requires that it should be applicable to software too, otherwise I frankly don't see the point. 

As well as copyright is not the point of OSD, but the four freedoms in general under any exclusionary rights that opposes to it, software freedom is the center point and the very scope of it. If there is no software, by any broad definition of it, involved in the license, I don't see the reason for approving anything.  So it's more a lack of scope, than anything that opposes in principle.

CERN OHLs -- I was involved in the first version's drafting process -- was meant to license anything that could be included and relevant to Open Hardware, which includes software in the Source definition. I regard Open Hardware as an extension or a field of Open Source software, in fact.

Cheers

Carlo


----- Messaggio originale -----
> Da: "Pamela Chestek" <pamela at chesteklegal.com>
> A: "license-review at lists.opensource.org" <license-review at lists.opensource.org>
> Inviato: Martedì, 15 agosto 2023 18:22:37
> Oggetto: ***_SPAM_***  Re: [License-review] A request for checking the review status of Mulan OWLs v1

> Don't you think that the a disclaimer of a patent grant is a violation
> of several points of the OSD? Unfortunately the OSD doesn't expressly
> memorialize freedom to run, I suspect because that's kind of the whole
> point, missed the forest for the trees. Nevertheless, I believe the
> express withholding of a patent license is a failure to ensure software
> freedom, which is also a current requirement, because there is no
> freedom to run. As to the OSD,
> 
> OSD 6 - No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor - it would be
> discrimination against the patented field of endeavor to withhold the
> patent grant.
> OSD 7 - Distribution of License: "The rights attached to the program
> must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need
> for execution of an additional license by those parties." The
> withholding of a patent license means that an additional patent license
> must be executed.
> OSD 8 - License Must Not Be Specific to a Product - This is the inverse
> of OSD 6, without a patent grant, the license is specific to the
> non-patented field of use (if any).
> 
> IIRC, the CERN OHLs were written specifically with software in mind, so
> that one license could be applied to the combination product of hardware
> and software. That benefit was why it was submitted to the OSI and we
> considered it. So it's not just a hardware license, but also by design
> could be used as a stand alone software license (which was no mean trick
> in the drafting). On my review, I walked through it as only a software
> license to make sure it didn't have any unintended consequences when
> applied that way.
> 
> Pam
> 
> Pamela S. Chestek
> Chestek Legal
> 300 Fayetteville Street
> Unit 2492
> Raleigh, NC 27602
> pamela at chesteklegal.com
> (919) 800-8033
> www.chesteklegal.com
> 
> On 8/15/2023 8:22 AM, McCoy Smith wrote:
>> FWIW, I agree that licenses that disclaim patent grants are not approvable.
>> That's the lesson of CC. I continue to think that the OSI should articulate
>> that as a hard-and-fast rule about approvable licenses so that future
>> submitters know that that's a requirement for any submitted license. There's an
>> underlying issue within that about whether a license that doesn't disclaim
>> patent licenses but doesn't articulate any express patent license is approvable
>> (at least, going forward) which probably also should be addressed (and
>> explained wrt to the approved licenses that do do that).
>>
>> I'm not sure I agree that a "content" license is not approvable. Not sure, but
>> don't think, that was an impediment to a consideration of CC. Also, there are
>> licenses already on the list that are not specifically limited to software and
>> could be equally applied to content. For example, the Fair license:
>> https://opensource.org/license/fair/  They've also approved the CERN OHLs.  I
>> think if OSI is going to limit itself to only "software" licenses, it need to
>> make that policy decision and make it clear, and perhaps articulate how one
>> distinguishes between a "software" (or "primarily software") and a
>> "non-software" (or "primarily non-software") license, keeping in mind that
>> software licenses have and are being applied to non-software, and vice versa. I
>> suppose a "content" license that expressly states that it must not or cannot be
>> used for software probably shouldn't be approved, but absent that I see no
>> reason why it shouldn't be approved if it could be used with software equally
>> with
> content.
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: License-review <license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org> On
>>> Behalf Of Pamela Chestek
>>> Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 7:46 AM
>>> To: license-review at lists.opensource.org
>>> Subject: Re: [License-review] A request for checking the review status of
>>> Mulan OWLs v1
>>>
>>>
>>> On 8/14/2023 5:31 PM, Josh Berkus wrote:
>>>> On 8/11/23 09:56, Pamela Chestek wrote:
>>>>> The context of the question is whether to approve the submitted Mulan
>>>>> OWL licenses, so the discussion needs to be on license-review. It's
>>>>> specifically whether we should approve these licenses. The only
>>>>> issues that anyone mentioned were that they were content licenses
>>>>> (and I raised the patent issue).
>>>> Those are sufficient issues, no?  I mean, they're not going to change
>>>> these from being content licenses, and right now we have no idea how
>>>> to approve content licenses.
>>>>
>>> I think so, it's only that the response on the list has been somewhat
>>> equivocal, so I want to make sure everyone is in agreement.
>>>
>>> Pam
>>>
>>> Pamela S. Chestek
>>> Chair, License Committee
>>> Open Source Initiative
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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> 
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