OVPL and open ownership

[David Barrett]

Chris Zumbrunn wrote:
> On Jul 23, 2005, at 10:37 AM, David Barrett wrote:
> 
>> Chris Zumbrunn wrote:
>> If so, this might be sufficient for me, but only barely as it's a big 
>> burden to police the world by myself.  The OVPL spreads the burden of 
>> enforcement over a larger group by empowering many people (either 
>> anyone who received the distribution, or anyone in the world -- I 
>> can't recall; which is it?) to demand accesss to non-ID modifications, 
>> not just me.
> 
> If someone breaks an open source license inside a closed source product, 
> it's always difficult to police. It doesn't matter which license the 
> original project was under - BSD, GPL, OVPL, Copyback - it doesn't make 
> a difference.

Yes, I agree, but the more eyes the better.  Under the OVPL, anyone who 
receives the binary can request the source, not just the ID.  It's still 
hard, but at least I'd have help.


>> But overall, the novelty I'm looking for is an exclusive leg-up over 
>> any competitors that spring up around my codebase.  This mitigates the 
>> risk of some developer simply checking out my code on day one, doing a 
>> search and replace with a new name, and setting up shop on near-equal 
>> footing as me (but without having made the same investment).
> 
> They have a copy of your software, not your brain.

Yes, but my brain is just one competitive advantage.  The sole ability 
to create proprietary derivatives is another.  When it comes to 
competition, I want as many and as varied advantages as I can arrange.

And don't forget, I'd already be at a competitive disadvantage to 
someone who took my source code on day 1, as I made a significant 
investment to produce it while they didn't.


>> Naturally, the Copyback still allows (and making OVPL's 3.3 opt-out 
>> still enables) anyone to fork off the mainline.  But so long as I'm a 
>> good steward and prove to the community my ID privilege is well 
>> deserved (such as by contributing extensively to the project and being 
>> a good manager), this risk is remote.
> 
> I don't know how remote the risk is, but that's generally equally true 
> for the OVPL, the GPL and Copyback license. Even with the BSD license 
> the forking risk isn't significantly bigger. How the project is 
> maintained is certainly more important than the license it is under (in 
> regards to the forking risk).

Yes.


>> If the Copyback supports this, it might work, though to be honest the 
>> OVPL still seems a bit closer.  That, I would really prefer to use an 
>> OSI-approved license.  Have you considered submitting it?
> 
> I just wasn't in a hurry and I first wanted to see what happens to the 
> OVPL. For a non-verbose license, the OSI approval isn't as important as 
> for a typical verbose and complex license, since everybody can pretty 
> clearly understand what it says without the need to blindly trust the 
> experts that put a seal of approval on it.
> 
> I would need to get the legal analysis done, that is required by step 3 
> of the approval process. That shouldn't be to big of a deal since the 
> Copyback license is so short and non-verbose, but it will certainly be a 
> document that is several times bigger than the license itself :-)

:)  I understand that.  Now let's just see how the OVPL turns out.

Thanks!

-david