[License-discuss] OSI license issue: Artistic license

[Jilayne Lovejoy]

Hello OSI!

We have identified a few outstanding license list reconciliation issues previously and one of those came up again in the form of a request to add the Perl Artistic license to the SPDX License List.  I thought it might be helpful to review that issue again, separately, in the hopes we can come up with some kind of resolution.

By way of reminder, here is a summary of the situation:

The OSI site has explanation regarding two variations of the Artistic License v1.0; that is, whether clause 8 is included or not.  We have already all agreed that this mandates having two separate entries on the SPDX License List – one for each variation.

The trouble is that the OSI also states that when clause 8 is included, it is called the Artistic (Perl) license and refers to the Perl site (see: http://opensource.org/licenses/Artistic-1.0).  However, the license text found on the Perl site (http://dev.perl.org/licenses/artistic.html) and that found on the OSI site are significantly different (notwithstanding clause 8).  A comparison document is attached here.

Currently, the SPDX License List includes only the Artistic License 1.0 (Artistic-1.0) (see: http://spdx.org/licenses/Artistic-1.0) which is the OSI version (with no clause 8).

In a previous thread, the last comment on this issue by OSI was to ask whether the OSI variation occurs "in the wild."  If not, then it was suggested to change the OSI site to match the Perl site text.

(my two cents on this is that it may be hard to say what has been found "in the wild," as it would be easy to conflate "Artistic LIcense 1.0" without realizing the OSI and Perl sites display distinct variations.  The only way to determine the difference would require a much closer look.  I would hazard to guess that these variations have been confused for each other "in the wild."  But I can't back that up in one direction or another at this time.)

Some insight from a license-savyy person associated with Perl who could help?

Proposed solutions:

#1
SPDX LIcense List adds two new licenses, as follows:
- Artistic License 1.0 w/clause 8  |  Artistic-1.0-cl8
- Artistic License 1.0 (Perl)  |  Artistic-1.0-Perl

OSI can then choose(now, later, whenever) to update or change their listing (or not) as it so desires and just update the SPDX short-name identifier accordingly; keeping everything in order, in terms of naming and references.

#2
OSI decides how these variations should be represented, updates its site and then SPDX will follow suit to be consistent.

#3
?? Another idea?


Please let us know what you think.

Cheers,

Jilayne Lovejoy
SPDX Legal Team |  Co-lead
OpenLogic, Inc.  |  Corporate Counsel
jlovejoy at openlogic.com<applewebdata://EAA1F861-B11E-4827-976F-55756901A796/jlovejoy@openlogic.com>



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