[License-review] License Review Submission: Irrevocable MIT License (MIT-I)

[Jean-Sebastien Carle]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to review my proposal. What I'm essentially trying to create is a MIT style license where the same license cannot suddenly change its license to go from being free open source software to paid open/closed source software. Trust in building software using open source software is being decimated by a large quantity of highly used, high profile, dependencies which developers build into their own software on the premise that that dependency is in fact free open source software. Then, after these dependencies have become tightly coupled and embedded in upstream software products, those dependencies have switched to restrictive, paid, licenses which essentially hold the consumers of those dependencies hostage.

I personally write all my software that I share as open source packages under the MIT license to give all consumers of my packages the freedom to use them as best as they see fit without any restriction whatsoever. I would love to be able to license my packages under an MIT like license such as the one I'm proposing to be able to say to consumers: "This dependency is open source software, free, and without restrictions. You may build your own software using these dependencies with the peace of mind that the attached license cannot be revoked nor substituted for a more restrictive one, now or in the future."

Sincerely,
Jean-Sebastien Carle

On Thu, Aug 14, 2025, at 6:04 PM, McCoy Smith wrote:
> Making a license irrevocable is fine, and many OSI licenses do that (for 
> example, Apache 2.0)
> 
> Making a license apply retroactively to prior versions of software is 
> potentially problematic, as if that software was previously licensed 
> under different terms, you can not revoke those terms as to recipients 
> who received it under the different terms. If that is not the intent, 
> then the "and all previous versions" is surplusage; you could just as 
> easily say "this Software" and achieve the same result.
> 
> Since the license already says it is irrevocable, saying the copyright 
> holders "many not revoke" is surplusage.
> 
> The statement that the "copyright holder(s) may not ... modify ... this 
> version of the Software" violates OSD 3. I'm not sure that's what is 
> intended here, but that's what the text says. If what is intended is 
> that the terms of the license may not be modified, that's OK and there 
> are other licenses (like GPL) that don't allow that.
> 
> The statement that the "copyright holder(s) may not ... relicense this 
> version of the Software" is a bit ambiguous (does that mean no 
> sublicense right? that's in, e.g., GPL; does that mean no licensing 
> under different terms? the copyleft licenses have that feature.
> 
> The statement that the Software will remain under the terms of the 
> license forever is probably equivalent to a perpetual license, although 
> I think it may be problematic in circumstances where the license is 
> found inoperative or invalid or something like that. So this, at best, 
> seems like a very bad idea. If you want a copyleft effect, there are 
> better drafted license terms that achieve that.
> 
> As an aside, it only says "this version" so I'd interpret it as only 
> apply to the code as received, not the code as modified. I don't see the 
> value of a commitment like that (except to bind the original author).
> 
> On 8/14/2025 10:43 AM, Josh Berkus wrote:
> > On 7/31/25 07:48, Jean-Sebastien Carle wrote:
> >> 1. Irrevocability Clause:
> >> "The rights and permissions granted under this license for this 
> >> version (and all previous versions) of the Software are perpetual, 
> >> non-exclusive, and irrevocable. The copyright holder(s) may not 
> >> revoke, modify, or relicense this version of the Software or any 
> >> previous version released under these terms. This version of the 
> >> Software will remain under the terms of this license forever."
> >
> > Attorneys, is this something that a license can actually do?  It 
> > doesn't seem like something that a license can compel.
> >
> 
> 
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