[License-review] For Approval: Rewrite of License Zero Reciprocal Public License

Wed Nov 8 16:27:52 UTC 2017

On Tue, Nov 7, 2017 at 11:50 PM, Kyle Mitchell <kyle at kemitchell.com> wrote:
>
> It is in copyleft-leaning toolmakers' interest.

 IMO it's not a copyleft license either. From
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

*copyleft <https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html> (very simply stated)
is the rule that when redistributing the program, you cannot add
restrictions to deny other people the central freedoms. This rule does not
conflict with the central freedoms; rather it protects them.*

So, consider the Four Freedoms section on use:

*The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or
organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of
overall job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it
with the developer or any other specific entity. In this freedom, it is the
user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose; you as a user are
free to run the program for your purposes, and if you distribute it to
someone else, she is then free to run it for her purposes, but you are not
entitled to impose your purposes on her.*

*The freedom to run the program as you wish means that you are not
forbidden or stopped from making it run. This has nothing to do with what
functionality the program has, whether it is technically capable of
functioning in any given environment, or whether it is useful for any
particular computing activity. *

In your license, you are asking for an *unrelated* program to be made Open
Source due to a condition predicated on a specific form of use. Besides
being clearly against OSD # 6 (and sorry, OSI is not now required to
announce this obvious fact), it's against the first of the four freedoms,
because it creates a consequence for use that is not related to protecting
the four freedoms regarding the program you're actually running.

So, AGPL protects the Four Freedoms regarding the program that is actually
being run. Your L0-R as presently submitted, in contrast, overreaches to an
unrelated program that is simply input to the program being run.

I'm going to call this the *King Midas Touch.* Simply process an unrelated
piece of copyrighted property and it has to now be Open Source! In
contrast, copyleft is only activated when you make your code part of the
covered program.

> I've said before that passing judgment like this risks sending the message
> that OSI has decided copyleft has to play with a handicap.

Richard Stallman decided that copyleft had to play with handicaps, in order
to protect its the Four Freedoms. OSI similarly follows me in requiring
that Open Source licenses play with 10 handicaps (mostly stated as the
license may *not*) in order to protect what fundamentally makes them Open
Source.

> And that insofar as free software is losing to closed source---or
> succeeding only by redefining success as assisting closed source, rather
> than competing
> with it---handicapping copyleft looks like picking a winner.
>

If you want to make a new deal in which unrelated software that is simply
processed with your program has to become Open Source, that is your right,
but you will need to name it something else than Open Source. I suggest you
call it* King Midas Software. *And if it succeeds better than Open Source,
so be it, but I don't believe it will do so. Open Source works so well
because of what it *does not* ask for.

And you need to be aware that the Open Source campaign does not espouse
that proprietary software is immoral. Thus, while OSI exists to promote
Open Source, I can't really say that their purpose is to replace
proprietary software in the market. So the whole question of winning or
losing *against *proprietary software (rather than just winning for Open
Source) is one you have at FSF rather than OSI, and be prepared for the
Four Freedoms to take precedence there.

> Will OSI reject a license on the basis that releasing software as Open
> Source is an onerous, unreasonable exaction dwarfing conceivable use value
> of any single program?

I'm really sure they would. They would take a principled stand on this. The
compulsion to Open Source a program simply in return for the right to use
another, is such an obvious over-reach, and introduces so many problems for
the user community. Even if you were to somehow make it OSD compliant, they
would continue to see it as a really bad deal for the community.

> Is foretelling practical cost-benefit analysis part of what it does?
>

If asking "is this license good for the community" means doing a
cost-benefit analysis, yes. OSI doesn't have to do a mechanical parse
according to the OSD. The purpose of the organization is to protect,
nurture, and facilitate that community. Faced with a license that would
cause the community obvious problems, they would easily say "no".

> OSI has already approved licenses that require release simply for the
> benefit of modifying, running, and distributing the licensed program.

Yes.  But of the program being run, modified, and distributed. Never an
unrelated program.

Some users of Open Source continue to see those licenses as unreasonable.
> Judging by OSI approvals past, OSI has not.
>

Yes. OSI does not see copyleft as unreasonable. I believe they would see
the King Midas Touch as unreasonable.

> The industry smudges every bright line, in time.
>

 Well, you're the one trying to smudge the bright line, and I get to fight
that, as well as OSI.

> Consider Node.js.  Significant server and other software is written on
> Node, using Node-targeted libraries.  But a substantial chunk of the growth
> of the platform comes down to developer tooling---code generators, linters,
> style checkers, transpilers, bundlers, minifiers---for
> browser-targeted development.  Crack open a typical front-end web project
> shipped yesterday, and you'd have a much harder time replacing the tooling
> than the framework. I can swap out React in a hurry, as many recently have
> done. Babel?  Webpack?  Potentially much harder!
>

All of these tool makers consider it a fair deal that your work doesn't
have to become Free Software just because you use a tool upon it. Even
Richard Stallman, who believes with all of his heart that proprietary
software is immoral and caused himself RSI and years of pain in writing
these tools, guarantees your freedom to keep the input to a program under
your own terms.

I have spent a lot of time arguing merit.  Several hours, and several
> drafts, on my prior message alone.  You quoted one sentence of that
> message, an example, in another reply.
>

Yes. Because I am I am finding it trivial to reject the license, despite
your voluminous argument. I could rebut every word, but it simply isn't
necessary.

You quoted just the first sentence here, and responded by repeating a bare
> conclusion, as opinion, about OSD 6.
>

Exactly. That was all that was necessary.

> Was the rest for nothing?  I'd be happy to return to it.
>

I think you're barking up the wrong tree. It doesn't fit the Open Source
model and you've been told that repeatedly.

I asked the questions in hopes of hearing OSI's answers.
>

Richard Fontana sits on the board and has had criticism of the license.
Simon is reading, because he answered when you went over the top about
OSI's legal obligations. You aren't engaging the other board members as far
as I can see. Ultimately, the people on the list would make recommendations
to the OSI board which they would generally follow, although they are not
compelled to, and the people on the list with demonstrated competence in
license analysis don't for the most part seem to be big fans of the license.

So I am not holding out hope, sorry.

    Thanks

    Bruce
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