[License-discuss] OSI definition

[Mat K. Witts]

The Open Source Definition (Annotated) is located on the internet at https://opensource.org/osd-annotated

Section 5, 'No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups' states, 'The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons'. The Rationale concludes: '[...] we forbid any open-source license from locking anybody out of the process'...

Section 6, 'No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor' states, 'The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research'. The Rationale suggests: 'The major intention of this clause is to prohibit license traps that prevent open source from being used commercially. We want commercial users to join our community, not feel excluded from it.'

Leftcopy (https://leftcopy.org) is a very simple, permissive licensing program based on MIT/Expat and 2-Clause BSD. It features one added restriction that only applies to legal entities having shareholders entitled to receive dividends from profits and employing more people than the license allows. Leftcopy does not restrict individual employees, groups of employees, individual shareholders, or groups of shareholders, individual company officers, or groups of company officers or any customers from using the work, even commercially. It does not lock any human beings 'out of the process', (so to speak). Leftcopy does not appear to directly or indirectly disadvantage any person or group of persons or discriminate against any field of endeavor. Are there any objections to this interpretation?