[License-review] New License for Consideration - Public Benefit Zero Copyright License v. 2.0

[Wayne Thornton]

I can understand the argument regarding standing to enforce a license, however even a copyleft license like the GPL is unenforceable if the developer doesn’t make known that they are using the covered code. Programming and software development, and open source licenses in particular, are something that relies on the general honesty and integrity of the downstream developers to comply with those licenses and the terms attached. As many of you are doubtless aware, there have been projects released that were found to be using GPL’d code without attribution. The developers were unethical and lacked the integrity to comply with the licenses and simply attaching a license did not stop the behavior. The only real enforcement in those cases came from pressure by the open source community to correct the issues and comply with the license. Legal action by the GNU Foundation is generally few and far between, although admittedly the GPL does make a legal filing possible.

That being said,  at their core, a license like the GPL and the proposed PBZC are simply grants of rights to use the source code in other projects. Where the proposed PBZC stands out is that it does add the requirements that use be to the “general public benefit”, meaning like the GPL, code should be given back and made available for others to use. Perhaps this should be included as a preamble statement and not as a condition of the license, however it doesn’t change the fact that the intention of the license is to dedicate works to the public domain for a particular purpose aka to benefit the general public by sharing technological innovations and ideas in the form of source code, binaries and documentation of same.

I believe the proposed PBZC is different and addresses the issues of simply releasing code 100% to the public domain without restriction, as the Unlicense seeks to do, by placing the limiting requirement that code be shared back and made available for the “general public benefit”.

Ultimately, the proposed PBZC is a license that relies on the integrity and ethical choices of developers and the companies they may work for in enforcement. There is no real restriction on the use of the software licensed under the proposed PBZC as once the code is released under the proposed PBZC, the developer has no method of enforcement of that license, which grants the freedom to do whatever they so choose with the code.


From: License-review <license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org> On Behalf Of Lukas Atkinson
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2024 6:42 AM
To: License submissions for OSI review <license-review at lists.opensource.org>
Subject: Re: [License-review] New License for Consideration - Public Benefit Zero Copyright License v. 2.0

It seems that part of this text has been borrowed from the Unlicense:

In jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors
of this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the
software to the public domain. We make this dedication for the benefit
of the public at large and to the detriment of our heirs and
successors.

The proposed PBZC uses this section almost verbatim, with the change of "the software" to "This Software" and the insertion of "subject to the provisions above":

In jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors
of this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in This
Software to the public domain subject to the provisions above.
We make this dedication for the benefit of the public at large and to
the detriment of our heirs and successors.

Much has been written about the problems of the Unlicense, with its arguably contradictory combination of a public domain dedication and a copyright license, a problem that the PBZC repeats. The Unlicense is not a particularly well-drafted license or PD dedication, and should not serve as a model for more licenses. That it was eventually OSI-approved has more to do with its widespread use in some circles. The legacy-approval discussions can be found in the list archives starting in March 2020 [1] and then continue for multiple months. In one of those messages[2], I summarize my concerns with the Unlicense and provide some links to the even-earlier discussion when the Unlicense was first submitted in 2012.

I would be very happy if new licenses/dedications/devices in the "PD dedication" or "PD equivalent" category make use of this wealth of prior discussions (well over a decade) and avoid running into the same problems.

This general concern about this kind of device is in addition to my reservation about trying to make that PD dedication *conditional*, which seems to contradict itself.

Another oddity is the narrow definition of "Commercial Open Source Software", and the potential for this license to be interpreted in a way that it is limited to use in the "general public benefit", which would be close to an OSD#6 violation. The provision (1) may be a meaningless statement of the license author's intention, but if it's actually a license condition, then the PBZC is more akin to a non open-source "Ethical Source" license:

Anyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or
distribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled
binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any
means provided:

1) This Software or Derivative Software is intended to inure to the
   General Public Benefit,[…]

So in summary, I am confused, and I'm not 100% confident that this is an OSD-compliant license that provides full Software Freedom. I *think* this device is trying to be a "copyleft ethical public domain dedication", which sounds impossible to achieve.

[1]: https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2020-March/thread.html#4795
[2]: https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2020-March/004799.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20241218/a703dc5a/attachment-0001.htm>