[License-discuss] Total Reciprocity Public License (TRPL v1.0)

Bruce Perens bruce at perens.com
Thu Dec 4 05:23:22 UTC 2025 

It just struck me as odd, because I _always_ use just those words:
"including, but not limited to", out of fear that some court somewhere will
think otherwise.

I agree that the present license discussion is academic. We get approached
with essentially the same misconceptions, behind different drafts, about
once a month.

On Wed, Dec 3, 2025 at 5:06 PM Gil Yehuda <tenorgil at gmail.com> wrote:

> Bruce,
> This was a minor comment relative to the larger point. There is nothing
> fundamentally wrong with a list of examples. It did, however, cause me to
> pause and see if I could understand what was in or out. I was unsure. That
> seemed worth mentioning as feedback to the OP.
>
> Let that not interfere with my larger points. I think this license can’t
> be complied with, even if fixed, offers little to the open source industry,
> and seems like it would make software licensed this way very unattractive
> to use. At most hopeful, if this is supposed to improve AGPL, I’d start
> with AGPL’s text and explore where and why improvements could be made.
>
> Gil
>
> On Wed, Dec 3, 2025 at 7:19 PM Bruce Perens via License-discuss <
> license-discuss at lists.opensource.org> wrote:
>
>> Gil wrote:
>>
>> when licenses say “This includes, but is not limited to” that
>> automatically creates a speed bump where a reader (and their lawyer) have
>> to imagine if this includes something surprisingly not intended. It creates
>> a very broad scope
>>
>> Really? I would have thought that it only did just what it said: to make
>> clear that inclusion did not imply limitation. I don't see why that broad
>> scope would not exist before any such statement and would be activated by
>> that text.
>>
>> Are there any actual cases where this was debated?
>>
>>     Thanks
>>
>>     Bruce
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 3, 2025 at 8:23 AM Gil Yehuda <tenorgil at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Jay,
>>> If you intend to ask for critique, there’s quite a bit — from nitpicking
>>> details to fundamental flaws. I’ll list some of the apparent ones below as
>>> I read the license text.
>>> If you intend to suggest this as a new open source license that would
>>> meet the OSD, I don’t think this will do.
>>>
>>> As I read the license:
>>>
>>>    - Preamble: Licenses are documents that grant rights under
>>>    conditions. This text suggests that the license can guarantee freedom,
>>>    indeed “radical” freedom (I’m not sure of the difference) in software
>>>    architecture (not just code?). Licenses should articulate the rights they
>>>    grant and the conditions under which those rights are granted. Preambles
>>>    are great to convey intent which helps when trying to interpret ambiguity;
>>>    but they also reveal cases where the intent is to express a wish for how
>>>    things ought to be in the world. That’s better expressed in a manifesto,
>>>    not a legal document.
>>>    - “Intimate Communication” is one of my favorite terms found in
>>>    software licenses since it makes people think we’re also dabbling in
>>>    marriage counseling. My constructive comment here is that when licenses say
>>>    “This includes, but is not limited to” that automatically creates a speed
>>>    bump where a reader (and their lawyer) have to imagine if this includes
>>>    something surprisingly not intended. It creates a very broad scope — and
>>>    that’s going to warn me to stay away from using code under this license
>>>    because I might intent to comply only to learn that the scope was even
>>>    broader than assumed.
>>>    - “Content Output” is defined with two terms “human consumption or
>>>    data storage” — I understand the first to exclude non-human uses and the
>>>    second to exclude the use of data that is not stored. I note this because
>>>    of the next phrase...
>>>    - “Deployment” is defined with a curious inclusion of the term
>>>    “internally or externally” which I assume means in the context of a
>>>    corporation (not of “human consumption” in the above clause — right?!) If
>>>    so, then “internally” suggests that if I deploy my application onto my work
>>>    computer for use by my work colleagues, then the copyright license
>>>    considers this to be “deployment’ subject to copyright protection. I do not
>>>    believe that would hold up in the current interpretation of copyright laws.
>>>    - “Consequently” (line 40) is where this becomes quite challenging.
>>>    If I create a system with code licensed under TRPL 1.0 that shares data
>>>    with any proprietary software to achieve a unified functional goal — this
>>>    license declares that the proprietary software becomes part of a "Combined
>>>    Work” that I must release its source code under the terms of this license.
>>>    But what if that proprietary software is not mine to release? I might not
>>>    even have the source code? Let’s say I license the proprietary edition of
>>>    Postman and use it to make an API call to software under TRPL 1.0 —
>>>    internally (to my corporation, not in my body). I now have to acquire and
>>>    release Postman’s proprietary source code under the TRPL 1.0 license? How
>>>    would I go about doing that? Since there’s no definition of “release” here,
>>>    can I assume that if I deploy internally, then I can release internally
>>>    too? You see that would not help promote your intent. This section of the
>>>    license seems to convey how you wish software would work — but it does not
>>>    clarify how I, a potential user of software licensed under this license,
>>>    needs to do to make the world work that way.
>>>
>>>
>>> I’m concerned there is little practical use of this license since any
>>> software licensed this way, no matter how appealing that software may be,
>>> is automatically going to pose a threat to the rest of my software. Given
>>> that software is subject to copyright, and that as a user of software, I
>>> seek to honor other people’s copyrights, this license would make it nearly
>>> impossible to do so. I’d always have to limit my use of this software to
>>> ensure I don’t inadvertently infringe other people’s rights.
>>>
>>> Rather than a license, maybe we can collectively imagine what the past
>>> 40-50 years of technology would have been like had there been no copyright
>>> on source code. I imagine it would be different — better in some ways,
>>> worse in others. This license appears to invoke that imagination. But since
>>> source code is subject to copyright laws, I think the licenses should do
>>> their best to work within that context, granting rights that the grantor
>>> wishes to grant, and imposing conditions that the users of the software
>>> wish to, and can, comply with. This text falls short on the second part, at
>>> least for me.
>>>
>>> Gil
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Dec 3, 2025, at 12:59 AM, Jay Patel <jaypatel.ani at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I am reaching out to community to collect feedback on the proposed
>>> license.
>>>
>>> Here is text of License:
>>>
>>> https://github.com/trplfoundation/trpl-license/blob/main/LICENSE
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Jay
>>>
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>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Bruce Perens K6BP
>> _______________________________________________
>> The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not
>> necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Official statements by the
>> Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address.
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> _______________________________________________
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> Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address.
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-- 
Bruce Perens K6BP
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