Open Source Licenses and Embrace-Extend-Extinguish
Ernest Prabhakar
ernest.prabhakar at gmail.com
Wed Feb 13 21:12:43 UTC 2008
Hi Matthew,
There are such licenses, e.g. SISSL:
http://www.openoffice.org/licenses/sissl_license.html
However, they are manifestly *not* Open Source. The open source
solution would be to make the code freely reusable, but place
conditions on the *branding* to ensure conformance.
-- Ernie P.
On Feb 13, 2008, at 11:55 AM, msibley at itoperators.com wrote:
> Howdy,
>
> I've worked on a few protocols and document standards over the
> years. One thing I've noticed is the tendency of certain players to
> either partially support an Internet standard, or add features to it
> making it no longer cross-platform. There are too many examples to
> list.
>
> My question is: are there any copyright licenses that are open, but
> have features designed to combat these practices?
>
> I am interested in licensing a copyright for a protocol. This
> protocol is fairly simple, and is designed to be extensible. I would
> like to say:
>
> ____________________
>
> If you use this protocol you must support _all_ features of a major
> version. You may extend the protocol as much as you like provided
> your extensions live in this namespace which has been provided for
> that purpose. Any implimentation that does not meet these criteria,
> will have its license revoked. This copyright is collectively owned
> by those who have published software which is in compliance with
> these license terms.
> ____________________
>
> My point here, is that people who support and develop free software
> and open standards should have some litigious reciprocity available
> against vendors who don't play nice. Malicious vendors should be
> responsible to everybody they screw, not just the original authors.
>
> So anything out there like that?
> Opinions? Comments?
>
> Thanks in advance!
> Matthew Sibley
> msibley at itoperators.com
>
>
>
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