[License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL) 0.4.0

[Brian Behlendorf]

On Wed, 17 Aug 2016, Smith, McCoy wrote:
> I hope you're getting a sense that there are several lawyers on this 
> mailing list -- lawyers who have years of experience looking at, 
> debating, and giving advice on the issues you identify in this 
> submission -- who think that your proposed license is a variant of 
> Apache 2.0 designed to solve a "problem" for USG users with Apache 2.0 
> that we are skeptical even exists.  Perhaps the ARL lawyers can clarify 
> what the problem is, and that we are missing something.  But I think at 
> least I am having a hard time understanding how this license does 
> anything that Apache 2.0 doesn't.

Is there something that a non-governmental entity can do to help with 
this, by simply redistributing under AL2.0 that which they obtained from 
ARL by "contract" such as this license?  E.g., if this license was used as 
the contributor agreement to a project hosted at the Apache Software 
Foundation, could it then be redistributed by the ASF under AL2.0, with 
appropriate credit given in a Contributing.md?  Being an IP laundry 
service for government is an awful reason to be an Apache project, but if 
there some other reason for ARL's code to be hosted there or at a similar 
organization (whether NGO or for-profit company even) that might solve the 
problem, and then doesn't have to worry about being an "open source 
license".  A government agency (or branch of the U.S. military) isn't 
really a great home for the governance of a code base and community 
anyways.

Brian