[License-review] For Approval - "Forget Me Not"

Clark C. Evans cce at clarkevans.com
Sat Jan 21 08:09:19 UTC 2012


This _miscellaneous_ license is intended to be a short, reusable,
permissive license requiring commensurate attribution for applications
having user interfaces that display attributions or copyright notices.
This is a license derived from the MIT adding an additional clause:


 To the extent that a user interface of a work containing the Software
 displays attributions, copyrights, or legal notices, it must credit
 the Software and its development project commensurately.


An express goal of this license is to be compatible with the GPLv3 as
a permissive additional term under clause 7b.  Another objective is 
to be simple and easy to activate (no supplemental terms, no exhibits).
It should also provide significant freedom as to how the attribution
requirement might be satisfied.  Consistent with GPLv3 5(d) this
license does not require an attributions if an application otherwise
lacks any sort of attributions, copyrights, or legal notices. 

I'm proposing this license since we'll be releasing large works under
GPLv3 with an additional permissive term requiring author attribution.
However, we have several components we'd prefer to release under a
non-copyleft license that preserves a similar attribution requirement.
Although I'm not a legal professional, this license is simple enough
that I'm asking for assistance to remedy any problems this group sees.

I'd like to do this in 3 phases.  I'd like to first get provisional
text ironed out here.  Then ask for Debian-legal to ensure that they
are OK with the license and verify with the FSF that they believe the
license term to be compatible with the GPLv3.  With any changes, I'd
like to then seek a final approval here. 

Kind Regards,

Clark

P.S.  The only prior public discussion of this license that I'm 
aware of was on license-discuss just the last week or so.

---
Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

To the extent that a user interface of a work containing the Software
displays attributions, copyrights, or legal notices, it must credit
the Software and its development project commensurately.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.



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