[License-review] For approval: The Cryptographic Autonomy License (Beta 4)

[Christopher Lemmer Webber]

Josh Berkus writes:

> On 1/7/20 11:00 AM, Pamela Chestek wrote:
>> The discussion is still active so it will not be considered at the next
>> Board meeting, which is this Friday. The soonest would be the February
>> Board meeting.
>
> So, it's been a month since there's been any discussion about the CAL.
> Pamela, can we take a poll of how people feel about the license?
> Pass/Reject/MoreDiscussionNeeded?

I'm not very sure if I'm in the right place to state this, but I'd say
"Reject" or at least "MoreDiscussionNeeded".  I believe there are very
serious problems in the license that will (ironically, due to its name)
prevent the ability to have safely private networks on cryptographically
secure peer to peer networks.  I believe I can demonstrate the privacy
risks, and spend most of tomorrow doing a detailed and longer writeup
about my concerns.  Note that I don't think it's any malicious intention
of the author to introduce these problems; I think Van is acting in good
faith and interest there, but nonetheless I think the concerns exist and
are very grave, if I understand correctly.

If I am going to air them before the board meeting, am I doing it in the
right place here?  If so, I will follow up on the thread here tomorrow.

 - Chris

PS: I'm sorry I haven't aired my very serious concerns earlier.  Van
asked me personally to review at last year's CopyleftConf and I never
got around to writing up my thoughts.  I regret that, and wish I had
done so sooner... maybe I could have prevented a lot of trouble.
Nonetheless I think it's important that I write them up now; I'm
guessing we're in the "speak now or forever hold your peace" moment
though, so I'm trying to articulate my concerns before it's too late.