[License-discuss] Does the LinShare "attribution" notice violate OSD?

[Pamela Chestek]

I agree with Simon that it prohibits forking. It is also my position 
that trademarks are not "Legal Notices" as that term is used in the AGPL 
and I can go into that in more detail if anyone is interested. (And it's 
in my chapter in Amanda's upcoming book ...) For that reason it may not 
be permitted by the AGPL.

As to the OSD, I would say OSD 3, although that is an interesting 
provision (and something I think about occasionally). OSD says "The 
license must allow modifications and derived works ..." But it doesn't 
say ALL modifications. If it is construed as meaning ALL modifications, 
that interpretation gets hard to reconcile with elements typically 
accepted as protected from modification, such as the copyright notice 
and a disclaimer of warranty by the original authors.

But this is an easy one for me to say does not comply with the common 
understanding of the OSD.

Pam (in my personal capacity)

Pamela S. Chestek
Chestek Legal
PO Box 2492
Raleigh, NC 27602
919-800-8033
pamela at chesteklegal.com
www.chesteklegal.com

On 9/19/2022 2:40 PM, Simon Phipps wrote:
> I agree that all looks very worrying and probably disqualifying, but 
> the trademark terms in clause 2 are even worse as they prohibit you 
> from rebranding the software as would be essential to fork:
>
>     Using these trademarks without the (TM) trademark notice symbol,
>     removing these trademarks from the software, modifying these
>     trademarks in any manner except proportional scaling (under the
>     proviso that such scaling keeps the trademark clearly legible), or
>     using these trademarks to promote any products or services
>     commercially, or on product packaging, websites, books,
>     documentation or any other publication without a written, signed
>     agreement with Linagora is strictly prohibited, and constitutes an
>     infringement of Linagora intellectual property rights over these
>     trademarks.
>
>
> I can't see any this new license resulting from the AGPL and the 
> additional terms would be approved by license-review@
>
> Cheers
>
> Simon
> (in a personal capacity)
>
> On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 7:10 PM Josh Berkus <josh at berkus.org> wrote:
>
>     Folks,
>
>     Someone just forwarded me this:
>
>     https://github.com/linagora/linshare/blob/master/COPYING.md
>
>     Take a look at "additional terms", esp:
>
>     > In accordance with Section 7 and subsection (b) of the GNU
>     Affero General Public License version 3, these Appropriate Legal
>     Notices consist in the interface display of the "LinShare™"
>     trademark/logo, the interface display of the "Libre & Free"
>     mention, and the interface display of the "You are using the Free
>     and Open Source version of LinShare™, powered by Linagora ©
>     2009--2020. Contribute to Linshare R&D by subscribing to an
>     Enterprise offer!". The latter notice must also be displayed in
>     any asynchronous message sent with the Program, for example
>     e-mails which will contain this notice in their footer. Retaining
>     these Appropriate Legal Notices in any and all Free and Open
>     Source versions of LinShare and LinShare software Programs is
>     mandatory notwhistanding any other terms and conditions.
>
>     ... this is the most burdensome example of an attribution notice I've
>     ever seen.  Feels like it's a violation of 10, and possibly 6 or 8 as
>     well. Thoughts?
>
>     -- 
>     Josh Berkus
>
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