<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">Comments in line.<br><br><div dir="ltr"><blockquote type="cite">On Dec 10, 2019, at 2:03 PM, Pamela Chestek <pamela@chesteklegal.com> wrote:<br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr">
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/10/2019 1:04 PM, Nigel T wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">Pam,
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<div>It may or may not be an open source license according
to the OSD but I will quote Van here because he said it
well:</div>
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<div><i>"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);white-space:pre-wrap">Regardless, I don't think that the Vaccine License is an appropriate OSS </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);white-space:pre-wrap">license. My primary objection to the vaccine license is that it imposes </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);white-space:pre-wrap">conditions that are logically separate from and wholly unrelated to the </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);white-space:pre-wrap">scope of the intellectual property rights that are licensed."</span></i></div>
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<div><font color="#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Replace vaccinations with open data. While I support both open data and vaccinations, I am disinclined to mix requirements for those with the terms of an OSI approved software license. Open data is arguably more related to open source than vaccinations but I would argue they are still separate.</span></font></div>
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This isn't an apt comparison, the CAL is not a data license. The CAL
was amended specifically to ensure that the data requirement only
goes as far as necessary to allow operation of the software. It is
therefore tightly tied to the ability to use the software. <br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The use or operation of the software is not dependent on user’s customer provided data being present or the software system wouldn’t work when first installed before there are any clients.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr">If I were to try to describe the difference, the Vaccine License
uses restrictions to accomplish a goal different than ensuring that
the software can be used. The CAL's restrictions are designed only
to ensure the software can be used.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div>The user of the software is the SaaS provider. Requiring that the source code be made available to their clients falls within the scope of a software license.</div><div><br></div><div>To require that the software user has to provide their customer’s data back to them, even if the original software doesn’t make it available, strikes me as overreaching for a software license.</div><div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr">
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CADaGzk4Mp4x+cNv=7T6uWabu70m08rGO_nEKmr5W0o-Jh7DSOw@mail.gmail.com">
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<div><font color="#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">And yes, I believe there are cases where it would be very difficult to comply with CAL and is a significant departure from prior licenses in terms of obligations to the user of OSS software for both being compliant and determining if you are in compliance.
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I appreciate the comment, which is a line of questioning I followed
too many months ago (there was this red square ....). The difficulty
of claiming "ease of compliance" as a criterion for approval is that
it's product-specific, plus the line between "ok" and "too hard" is
going to be different for every user. <br></div></blockquote><div><br></div>The criteria for compliance with open source software has at most ever been to make sure all the code required to make the software work be made available.</div><div><br></div><div>If I provide everything I got from upstream and any code I changed or added to downstream I’m compliant.</div><div><br></div><div>This is different not in degree but in kind.</div><div><br></div><div><b>In the scenario I provided to you (client management site), how would you determine if you could be in compliance with CAL?</b></div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CADaGzk4Mp4x+cNv=7T6uWabu70m08rGO_nEKmr5W0o-Jh7DSOw@mail.gmail.com"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">
<div><font color="#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">I also do not believe that we can rely on a more forgiving reading of license terms but a stricter one...part of the review process here is hopefully to figure out possible failure modes from both benign and malevolent actors.</span></font></div>
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It's a balance for sure, trying to figure out whether someone is
trying to game the system in pursuit of goals that do nothing for
software freedom or whether instead the license has a legitimate
application that advances software freedom but that may allow misuse
as a side effect. <br>
<br>
Comments are all my own and not made on behalf of OSI.<br>
<br>
Pam<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CADaGzk4Mp4x+cNv=7T6uWabu70m08rGO_nEKmr5W0o-Jh7DSOw@mail.gmail.com">
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<div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);white-space:pre-wrap">Regards,</span></div>
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<div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);white-space:pre-wrap">Nigel</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Dec 10, 2019 at
12:26 PM Pamela Chestek <<a href="mailto:pamela@chesteklegal.com" moz-do-not-send="true">pamela@chesteklegal.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
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<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> You haven't answered my last
question, which is whether you believe this is not an
open source license or simply that it a license that
will be difficult to comply with in some use cases. If
you believe it is not an open source license, what would
be your explanation of the rationale for refusing it?<br>
<br>
Pam<br>
<br>
<div>Pamela S. Chestek<br>
Chestek Legal<br>
PO Box 2492<br>
Raleigh, NC 27602<br>
919-800-8033<br>
<a href="mailto:pamela@chesteklegal.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">pamela@chesteklegal.com</a><br>
<a href="http://www.chesteklegal.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">www.chesteklegal.com</a><br>
<br>
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<div>On 12/10/2019 11:48 AM, Nigel T wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">Pam,
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<div>My concern is that most software that takes
in user data isn't very well equipped to
export that user data back out. </div>
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<div>If the <b>code</b> you received from
upstream (not user data) can not comply with
the user data export requirements of
4.2...whatever those may be...then the
downstream user of that code is automatically
not in compliance with the license on day 1.</div>
<div><br>
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<div>A simple scenario is I open source a system
that lets my clients make appointments with
me, see their billing statements, communicate
with me, etc under the CAL license. You see
this and like it because of open data and
transparency and get a copy of my software and
begin to use it for your own clients. It's
really easy to do as I provided you (or
whomever sets up your web site for you) step
by step instructions on how to set it up on
your own host. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>No need to compile anything, just run my
installer, pick a password, fill in some
preferences, add your logo and you're ready to
go. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>For any other open source license if you
provide the source code of my software to your
clients you are, as far as I can tell, always
in compliance.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But say I had neglected to provide a way to
export some data fields that the client gives
me when interacting with the system. You are
in breach of the license as is everyone else
who used my open source software to serve
their own clients.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>All the client user data is certainly
available to you as the downstream provider of
the software to your clients...it may just a
simple SQL statement away or it may require a
lot of code changes to make available but
either way you DO have it.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>As a potential downstream user looking at
my software web page, running on my demo site,
etc, how do you know you are actually in
compliance without more careful analysis of
the system inputs and outputs? Do you not
have to remake this assessment every time you
upgrade to my latest version? </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I also do not believe that we can assume
that the required data is easily ascertainable
nor do I believe that you could provide a
simple criteria like "received in plain text"
given that often the most valuable user inputs
are the relationships between data and data
groupings they create.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
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<div>Also the requirement to export <i style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">"</i><i style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;white-space:pre-wrap">data has been generated by, for, or has been assigned to the Recipient"</i><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;white-space:pre-wrap"> makes the required export data not easily ascertainable.</span></div>
<div><br>
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<div>Regards,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Nigel</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Dec 10,
2019 at 10:12 AM Pamela Chestek <<a href="mailto:pamela@chesteklegal.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">pamela@chesteklegal.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
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<div>On 12/10/2019 9:41 AM, Nigel T wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite">
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif">The <b>software
is not a safety deposit box</b> because
of the requirement that you must also
return <i>"</i><span style="background-color:transparent"><i style="color:rgb(0,0,0);white-space:pre-wrap">data has been generated by, for, or has been assigned to the Recipient". </i><font color="#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Safety deposit boxes don't generate new content for users. Software often does. </span></font></span></font></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial,sans-serif;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">
</span></div>
<div><span style="background-color:transparent"><font face="arial, sans-serif" color="#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Even ignoring generated data that you'd have go though each and every UI screen and make sure all inputs provided by user are correctly mapped to an export field...and you have to do this every time you update from upstream.</span></font></span></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="background-color:transparent"><font color="#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">
</span></font></span></font></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="background-color:transparent"><font color="#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"><b>If the original software cannot export all of the data required to meet the requirements of 4.2 then all subsequent users of the software are in breach of the license.</b> </span></font></span></font><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><b>This is a
point that you continue to dance
around. </b></font></span><span style="background-color:transparent"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">You are handwaving significant legal and technical burden you are placing on users of CAL licensed software because you want to extend licensing requirements beyond open </span><b style="white-space:pre-wrap">source</b><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> into open </span><b style="white-space:pre-wrap">data </b></font></font></span><span style="background-color:transparent"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">and non-technical users who just use the software out of the box don't control that at all. There are no exceptions for non-compliance of the original code in this license so it's <b>a compliance nightmare</b></span></font></font></span><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"><b> for every downstream user whether they change the code or not</b>.</span></font></div>
<div><span style="background-color:transparent"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">
</span></font></font></span></div>
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Hi Nigel,<br>
<br>
Can you help me understand your point better?
Section 4.2.1 says "Throughout any period in
which You exercise any of the permissions
granted to You under this License, You must also
provide to any Recipient <i>to whom you provide
services via the Work</i>, ... the Recipient's
User Data in your possession, <i>to the extent
that such User Data is available to You</i>
for use in conjunction with the Work." <br>
<br>
I acknowledge your dislike of the ambiguity of
"to the extent that such User Data is available
to You," but I'd like to put that point aside.
For the purposes of argument let's assume that
it is an easily ascertainable set of data,
something like "any User Data you received in
plain text." The scenario is that I have
received data about a Recipient from upstream,
and now I am providing services to that same
Recipient, which is the only situation in which
I would have to provide User Data. Is your point
that the program architecture may make it too
difficult to extract and provide the plain text
that upstream provided to me? Is your argument
that there is something that is not open source
about this arrangement, or is it that the
license will be used in situations for which it
is poorly suited?<br>
<br>
Pam<br>
<br>
Pamela S. Chestek<br>
Chestek Legal<br>
PO Box 2492<br>
Raleigh, NC 27602<br>
919-800-8033<br>
<a href="mailto:pamela@chesteklegal.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">pamela@chesteklegal.com</a><br>
<a href="http://www.chesteklegal.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">www.chesteklegal.com</a><br>
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