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

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

Hello Florian,

On Wed, Sep 21, 2022 at 11:10:29AM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
> It's just sufficient to create uncertainty around whether it's
> allowed, and provide a paid way out.  People who want to use the
> software will likely pay when prompted.
[...]
> Maybe OSI should amend the GPL and AGPL certification to say that it's
> only valued if no Additional Terms are used?

I agree that the uncertainty here is enough, in practice, to keep users
from actually exercising their rights of stripping further restrictions,
as per *GPL-3 licenses.

But if that's the case, and if we also consider guidance from OSI useful
in countering such uncertainty, than we should use OSI's voice to inform
users about their rights of stripping further restrictions. That would
be a much useful policy action than narrowing down the set of *GPL-3
license variants which are endorsed by OSI.

Cheers
-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli . zack at upsilon.cc . upsilon.cc/zack          _. ^ ._
Full professor of Computer Science              o     o   o     \/|V|\/
Télécom Paris, Polytechnic Institute of Paris     o     o o    </>   <\>
Co-founder & CTO Software Heritage            o o o     o       /\|^|/\
Former Debian Project Leader & OSI Board Director               '" V "'