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

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

> > Zack had replied:
> >>> 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.

I replied further:
> > Indeed.  IMO, the best solution here would be for the OSI to join
> > other FOSS activists to take a stand in encouraging removal of
> > further restrictions under the Affero GPL.  The Neo4j situation was
> > a huge missed opportunity in this regard.

Florian Weimer then replied further:
> It goes against more than two decades of DFSG (and presumably OSD)
> analysis, where conflicting and unclear terms have always been held against
> the licensor, making the work non-free.

I disagree completely.  GPLv3§7¶4 didn't *go against* DFSG/OSD on that point,
rather it was *informed* by those two decades of that analysis.  The whole
point of the GPLv3§7¶4 provision in the GPLv3-group of licenses *is* to give
a better solution than “must reject” to those doing that analysis.

Of course, we can argue, as we are on this thread, whether the GPLv3§7¶4
approach to this issue was the right one.  We can also argue whether, after
ten years of use, it has been effective.  But, then, we should then discuss
why it hasn't been effective.

IMO, this issue is just a subset of the larger problem: widespread industry
ignoring GPL's terms — which continues for almost impunity, and a change by
some major organizations who historically were at least friendly to copyleft
are now not particularly friendly to copyleft.

But, please, let's be clear that GPLv3§7¶4 is just yet another copyleft
clause that happens to be regularly ignored/manipulated.  This issue just
*isn't* about license evaluation for freedom/openness; it's about whether
copyleft terms are adhered to and respected.  It's almost always the case
that when copyleft terms are violated/ignored, by side-effect, the software
becomes non-free/non-open.  But that doesn't make the underlying license
itself a non-free/non-open one.

 -- bkuhn