[License-review] Request for Approval of 'CasperLabs Open Source License (COSL)

Bruce Perens bruce at perens.com
Wed Dec 11 19:24:08 UTC 2019


As others have noted, this license is unpassable in more ways than we can
count. I wonder if this has been submitted simply to be a work of satire,
lampooning the premise of the CAL. However, I'll give the submitter the
benefit of the doubt, and point out a couple of the places where the
submitter has gone wrong, for their education and that of others who are
lurking on the list.

The license is unreasonably specific to a single company and a single
software package, by embedding a cut-over date. Any serious effort at
coming up with an open source license would parameterize this date. But the
premise that the license needs to include a cut-over at all is faulty. It
is simple enough to state outside of the license that software published
before a specific date is granted under the Apache license.

But the main problem is that this is a node operation contract attempting
to present itself as a copyright license. I also feel this is a fault in
this CAL, but this submission magnifies that fault to the obnoxious
dimensions.

Embedding the thorough description of roles and actions simply makes it
clear that this license has as its main feature required performance, which
is very questionably enforceable in a copyright license.

Thanks

Bruce
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