[License-review] 2nd resubmission of the new MGB 1.0 license

[Josh Berkus]

On 3/13/25 02:25, Barksdale, Marvin wrote:
> 1.        > What about making it more generic to PII laws in general?  
> It's best to write licenses for posterity, and there's no way for us to 
> predict what new data privacy laws may exist in the future.
> 
> Although I understand the general desire to “write licenses for 
> prosperity,” it appears the drafters of several popular osi licenses 
> have similarly looked to strike a balance between evergreen language and 
> utilizing critical statutory definitions which are relevant to industry 
> standards in licensing. This practice has even extended as far as 
> historical statutory definitions that are 20+ years old,  deemed 
> relevant to the practices and standards of the time:

> *OSET Public License version 2.1 (2015): “*The Covered Software is a 

> *NASA Open Source Agreement v1.3*: (2004)**“Modification means any 

> *Common Development and Distribution License 1.0 (2004): *  The Covered 

So, here you've quoted two licenses which were written for specific 
government agencies -- and are "non-reusable" -- and one which is 
retired.  Nobody uses the NASA license but NASA.

Whenever we examine licenses in this forum, we make an effort to guide 
new licenses towards being generic and reusable to the extent that it's 
possible to do so.  As you've noted, that wasn't possible with the OSET 
or NASA license and given the purpose of the MGB it might not be 
possible either.  But we should at least discuss it.

-- 
Josh Berkus