For Approval: Transitive Grace Period Public Licence, v1.0

Russ Nelson nelson at crynwr.com
Tue Feb 17 20:51:51 UTC 2009


zooko writes:
 >  From my perspective, this process has so far been thorough and  
 > transparent, but not timely.

Sorry.  You're asking for something which is not well-understood.
Existing open source licenses either do, or don't do.  The TGPPL
might, in a year.  No other license requires a covenant.

 > 1.  There is no doubt that the TGPPL is an open source licence,  
 > conformant with the Open Source Definition.

Here's how the discussion went:

A licenses code under the TGPPL.
B chooses to take advantage of the delay.
C observes B's contribution to the world of proprietary software, and
    structures their actions to receive source in less than 12 months.
B decides to renege on his promise to release source and decides to
    violate the license.
A decides that he doesn't mind that B is violating his copyright
    (copyright is not like trademark; you can enforce selectively.)

C has no recourse.  The board is not clear whether this could happen
or not.  Clearly this it is risky for OSI to allow its trademark
(which MUST be enforced consistently) to be used on software licensed
in this manner.  More thought is needed.  It's possible that years of
experience with this license may be needed before it can be approved.

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