[License-review] License Committee Report - January 2017

[Tzeng, Nigel H.]

Richard,

This is my understanding as well.  I would be interested in hearing a
synopsis of the discussion and the rational (whichever way it goes) added
to the OSD 5 section.

Moving to all derivative works being Apache is fine by me.  I just didn¹t
want to expend the effort to do the rewrite/review if it was just going to
get rejected anyway.

Regards,

Nigel


On 1/9/17, 11:49 AM, "License-review on behalf of Richard Fontana"
<license-review-bounces at opensource.org on behalf of
fontana at opensource.org> wrote:

>On Mon, Jan 09, 2017 at 08:08:26AM -0800, Josh berkus wrote:
>> On 01/08/2017 07:52 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
>> 
>> > Upstream Compatibility License v1.0 (UCL-1.0)
>> > =============================================
>> > 
>> > Submission: 
>>https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2016-October/002856
>>.html
>> > 
>> > Comments: Questions were raised about conformance with the
>> > nondiscrimination policy of OSD 5. It was suggested that the license
>> > be redrafted so that all downstream modifications are licensed under
>> > the Apache License 2.0 (rather than just upstream licensors receiving
>> > a copy under the Apache License 2.0).
>> > 
>> > Recommendation: At request of license submitter and others, OSI to
>> > provide general guidance by commenting on whether a license that
>> > privileges one class of licensees by giving it greater permissions
>> > relative to other licensees conflicts with OSD or should be
>> > discouraged or disapproved for non-OSD policy reasons.
>> 
>> Again, there was follow-up on this where we suggested an improvement to
>> the structure of this language, and the submitter was waiting on
>> feedback from the committee that that improvement would make it more
>> acceptable.  They never got it.
>
>Here's my understanding of the situation:
>
>Nigel proposed UCL, a license which is basically: "OSL 3.0, except
>that upstream licensors get downstream modifications under the Apache
>License 2.0". Some comments suggested that this asymmetrical licensing
>feature conflicted with OSD5. Others argued that it would be incorrect
>to ground a policy objection to such a feature in the OSD.
>
>I believe you and Nigel proposed that the OSI board provide some
>general guidance on whether asymmetrical features like that which is
>the main distinctive feature of UCL are inherently in conflict with
>the OSD (or alternatively should not be approved because of some
>policy rationale extrinsic to the OSD).
>
>I believe you proposed an alternative approach under which all
>modifications to code originally released under the (copyleft) UCL
>would be licensed under the Apache License 2.0. This still seems to
>have some 'asymmetry' but not to the same degree as the original
>UCL. I think Nigel said he was willing to consider implementing this
>approach but would wait for feedback from the OSI.
>
>So the immediate action is for the OSI board to consider whether to
>provide some guidance about the relevance of asymmetrical licensing
>features in proposed licenses. The fact that a 'less asymmetrical'
>approach to designing the UCL has been proposed has been passed on to
>the OSI board.
>
>Richard
>
>
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