[License-review] For Approval: Twente License

Tue Feb 5 22:29:46 UTC 2019

Hi Eric,

Thank you for your response. I agree with you 100% and think we can come up with a better way to encourage corporate responsibility. I will definitely brainstorm this with my team and come back to you for your valuable opinion. 

As for Twente License, I understand a rejection for OSI approval. 

Anand

Sent from my iPhone

> On 5 Feb 2019, at 23:04, Eric Schultz <eric at wwahammy.com> wrote:
> 
> Anand,
> 
> Thanks for submitting this.
> 
> I think this unambiguously fails OSD #6. I 100% support your goals but it's not a goal your license can enforce this way and also be open source
> 
> Without digressing too far, I'd like to encourage you and others having social justice goals as well as those feeling their software is exploited unfairly by large companies to explore how to do discourage bad actors without messing with licenses. Our community has options already, including choosing which use-cases to support (or, in the extreme, even removing features), excluding bad actors from the community, public shaming of bad actors, refusing to provide voluntary support, etc. Quite honestly, I don't see much activity in that area which is quite disappointing. It's an area for ripe for innovation and exploration.
> 
> Eric
> 
>> On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 3:39 PM Anand Chowdhary <anandchowdhary at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Thank you for your feedback, Larry! I truly value it.
>> 
>> I understand your concerns, especially with the ambition, which I have since scaled down. As you would see in the license page (twente.me), the license is essentially a fork of MIT with the added compliance to not collecting any personal information without consent, or sharing it.
>> 
>> I also agree that #6 is ambiguous which is why I decided to submit it, even though I see now that the license may not be OSI-approved after all. However, I wanted to take my chances since it doesn’t directly discriminate any group as long as they comply with the license.
>> 
>> I would love to hear more feedback about this, thanks again!
>>> On 5 Feb 2019, 22:34 +0100, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com>, wrote:
>>> Anand Chowdhary wrote about the proposed Twente License:
>>> 
>>> > ... compliant with certain guidelines, primarily respecting privacy, human rights, and other European values
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Personally, I respect and admire those values. I wish that the US, with a different President and Congress, would pursue those values also!
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> But compliance with values is the function of laws rather than a software license. We recognize that limitation in OSD #6 regarding the (somewhat ambiguous) "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor". [1] Our governments adopt protective regulations about "values". (At least recently, Europe often does, the US doesn't as often.) But "privacy, human rights, and other ... values" are far more ambitious than software can protect with its mere open source licenses.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> By the way, please don't call them "European" values. We are in each country entitled to our own values.... That is why you can't restrict a license based on fields of endeavor or values.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> /Larry
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> [1] OSD # 6: The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> From: License-review <license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org> On Behalf Of Anand Chowdhary
>>> Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 1:05 PM
>>> To: license-review at lists.opensource.org
>>> Subject: [License-review] For Approval: Twente License
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Name: Twente License
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Rationale: The MIT license is the most popular open-source license out there. It's used by millions of projects and helps the community by providing open access to code, so that developers can build on top of the hard work done by others. However, in light of recent events where companies are financially motivated to disregard individual privacy, developers should choose wisely who can use their intellectual property or codebases.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Distinguish: Twente License is free and permissive—just like the MIT license—but it adds a clause where the end product in which Twente licensed code can be used has to be compliant with certain guidelines, primarily respecting privacy, human rights, and other European values.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Legal review: I’ve had a lawyer informally have a look, but no in-depth legal review has been conducted.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Proliferation category: Other/Miscellaneous licenses (5)
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Relevant links:
>>> 
>>> https://github.com/AnandChowdhary/twente-license
>>> 
>>> https://twente.me/anand
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Please find attached the license in plain text.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Anand Chowdhary
>>> 
>>> Chief Executive Officer
>>> 
>>> Oswald Labs
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> NL +31 644691056
>>> 
>>> IN +91 9555297989
>>> 
>>> ceo at oswaldlabs.com
>>> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Eric Schultz, Developer and FLOSS Advocate
> wwahammy.com
> eric at wwahammy.com
> @wwahammy
> Pronouns: He/his/him
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