[License-review] For Approval: Master-Console's Open-Source Definitive License(MCopdl)

Smith, McCoy mccoy.smith at intel.com
Tue May 28 15:54:34 UTC 2019


I'll add to the comments that this license is in non-idiomatic English and should be revised accordingly if it is desired to be approved.



Two of the "rights" enumerated appear to me to violate OSD 5 and/or 6:


-Revertive Distribution: Some Developers want the source to be safe, malware-free, stable .This can be monitored by the Creator, Owner or Trusted Authoritative and if found, they can ask the distributor/distributors to revert the code to being helpful rather than being with malicious or unstable version of the source. If still the distributor does not comply, the Creator, Owner or Trusted Authoritative can report and takedown that source. This is only an optional feature of this license and it is the Creator, Owner or Trusted Authoritative's choice to apply Revertive Distribution act. This act is granted only 3 times since abuse of the license can also take place or if there was a potential exploitation code which is still used and ignored by the owner, thus this is limited to 3. This Permission is granted if the source is used privately.



This seems to confer a right on the Creator, Owner or a contributor the right to decide what modified versions are “malicious” or “unstable” and force takedown.  That violates OSD 6 (and OSD 5 since it discriminates against non-contributors).



-Transcripted Use: This is not permitted except for the Creator, Owner. Transcripted site can be a site to view code publicly but not to be able to use, download and verify the code. This is required since large products have tons of sources. This means code to be stored and disclosed in a repository like base for everyone.



Since this right is only conferred to the Creator or Owner, this violates OSD 5.



I’m not sure it makes sense to do a rewrite of this license if it continues to have problems complying with the OSD.



There are also potential Freedom Zero problems with this license as well, I think, although the wording is such that I can’t quite tell.



-----Original Message-----
From: License-review [mailto:license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org] On Behalf Of Lukas Atkinson
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2019 2:11 AM
To: License submissions for OSI review <license-review at lists.opensource.org>
Subject: Re: [License-review] For Approval: Master-Console's Open-Source Definitive License(MCopdl)



I have difficulty understanding the license because it introduces many novel terms, and because the English is not particularly clear. While fine in general, that is highly problematic for a legal document.



- was this license already reviewed by a lawyer, or do you first want feedback from this list?



- could you explain in more detail what those “essential security features” are that other licenses lack? Could you please provide a rationale for them?



- what is “transcripted use”? Doesn't this clause go in the same direction as the GPL's requirement that the corresponding source code must be machine readable?



- the license includes sentences like “This is permitted […] with the monitoring of the Owner or Creator.” What kind of monitoring? If use of the software is conditional on the “Owner”'s permission, that might not be free software.





On Mon, 27 May 2019 at 10:29, Wayne A Rangel <waynerangelboy at gmail.com<mailto:waynerangelboy at gmail.com>> wrote:

>

> Master-Console's Open-Source Definitive License is for a whole purpose

> of open-source projects out there. Master-Console Inc.(https://master-console-inc.tk) is the owner of this license and founded this license as other licenses out there like Apache License or GPL were not actually compatible for security reasons the project was working on, therefore we casted a custom license which would not only help ourselves but the millions of open-source projects out there but it can't be done without proper approval and verification, then only it can seem for the license to help and people using it would think so. This license was created with similarity to some popular licenses and with essential security features which those licenses lacked like prevention of transcripted use. Transcripted use means which reveals the source publicly but does not let users access actual content, download and verify the integrity of the project, thus harming the open-source terms. An example could be this: https://www.androwish.org/index.html/tree?ci=tip which does let access to view but does not let access to part of the original source in it and forcibly acts to download all the source. It has many other features too, but plenty much writing here would take your time. However, its all listed in the license.

>

> THE LICENSE IS ATTACHED WITH THIS MAIL AS A PLAIN TEXT FILE, PLEASE

> READ AND VERIFY ALL OF ITS SOURCE. PLEASE REPLY BACK FOR APPROVAL OR REJECTION AND STATE WHERE IT WENT WRONG. THIS LICENSE MAY COME UNDER THE PROLIFERATION CATEGORY OF A GENERAL-PURPOSE OPEN-SOURCE LICENSE LIKE MOSTLY USED LICENSES BUT HOWEVER FOCUSES MORE TO BEING SECURE, OPEN-SOURCE AND FREE FOR ALL.

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