[License-review] For Approval: The BOS Public License v1.0

[Josh Berkus]

On 7/22/26 2:44 PM, Harz Tronics wrote:
> You can review the full license text and documentation here:
> https://github.com/Luis-Harz/The-BOS-License <https://github.com/Luis- 
> Harz/The-BOS-License>
> Thank you very much for your time and for reviewing this submission. I 
> look forward to hearing your feedback.

Please attach a copy of the text to your submission.  While we 
appreciate making it available via Github, we need a version that isn't 
subject to dynamic changes to evaluate.

Also, your links are broken.

I do question the utility of this license, based on its goals.  While I 
understand your motivation, I do not think you have thought it through 
sufficiently.

- What is an "original repository"?  The repository I forked, or some 
other repository? If it's some other, then how do I know where that is 
if it's not in the license text?

- How does that apply if software under this license becomes part of a 
language library set (like NPM or PyPy)?

- What if the "original repository" is made private, archived, or 
deleted, or is on a platform that no longer exists?  What if it gets 
hijacked?  Am I still obligated to link to it?

- What if I'm not forking the whole project, but instead am just copying 
a single module from it?  What are my obligations?

- What if a project under this license imports another project under the 
same license?  Which is the "original repository" then?

Then there's the clause around CREDITS.txt:

"You are not allowed to remove, hide, or edit the names or credits 
within this file."

The way this clause is written, only the "original repository" can add a 
CREDITS file, and nobody in any downstream repository can add names to 
it, even if they do extensive work -- even if the work they do eclipses 
the work done by the "original repository".

Overall, this license falls into the common trap of thinking of OSS as 
having an "original source" which was somehow created from scratch 
without using any other OSS components, and all downstream derivatives 
are copying most of its code, and directly from it.  While direct 
forking certainly happens, so does minor code copying, downstream 
redistribution, project merging, aggregation into collections, etc.  A 
new license should take the realities of modern OSS software 
distribution into account.

-- 
Josh Berkus