Change ot topic, back to OVPL

Brian Behlendorf brian at collab.net
Wed Aug 24 19:59:43 UTC 2005


On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Wilson, Andrew wrote:
> Agreed.  Brian and Russ, I don't know how much of the (quite lengthy) 
> previous discussion of OVPL you followed, but there are those (such as 
> myself) who question whether the mandatory, extensive license-back to 
> the ID in OVPL falls within the letter and spirit of the OSD.  There are 
> also those (such as myself and Larry Rosen) who question whether said 
> license-back can be validly conveyed through a bare license, as opposed 
> to a duly executed contributors agreement.  Should a license whose key 
> feature -- the one feature which really distinguishes it from CDDL -- 
> may be unenforceable get the OSI seal?

I didn't follow it, but the Apache 2.0 license has something that goes in 
the same direction but nowhere near as far:

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.txt

    5. Submission of Contributions. Unless You explicitly state otherwise,
       any Contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the Work
       by You to the Licensor shall be under the terms and conditions of
       this License, without any additional terms or conditions.
       Notwithstanding the above, nothing herein shall supersede or modify
       the terms of any separate license agreement you may have executed
       with Licensor regarding such Contributions.

The ASF still requires a signed Contributors Agreement before accepting 
major works or before someone becomes a committer; the above is intended 
to apply to minor contributions so we don't need a signed document from 
every single person.

Anyways, I don't think *enforceability* should determine whether it gets 
certification, though that can certainly affect where it falls into the 
recommended/dis-recommended lists.  The real question is whether an "all 
my derivatives are belong to you" clause is in the spirit of OSI, and I've 
not looked closely enough at the OVPL to judge.

 	Brian




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