[License-review] The Better Attribution License.

Thu May 15 04:38:13 UTC 2025

I agree with all of McCoy's points. On the casual language, particularly 
"undue hassle," that's certainly in the eye of the beholder - what is 
"undue" is very different for a large bureaucratic organization or 
government than a small company or individual developer. For a 
requirement like this you're much better off with objective deadlines 
and requirements.

My original objections to this license still stand. The framework is 
just uses a bad concept for a license.

Pam

Pamela S. Chestek
Chestek Legal
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On 5/13/2025 3:10 PM, McCoy Smith wrote:
> I don't see either in the prior submission or here that you answered 
> all the questions that's required for a new license submission:
>
> https://opensource.org/licenses/review-process
>
> [speaking in personal capacity and not as member of the Board]
>
> The Artistic Licenses (particularly 1.0) are notoriously difficult to 
> parse (see here:https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/License:Artistic-1.0 ) 
> so I suppose this license is an improvement over those licenses, 
> although I find there is still a lot of ambiguous or poor wording in 
> this license ("undue hassle" "self-perceived optimizations"). I also 
> do not see what the value is of requiring the provision of the source 
> for both the Standard and Modified versions upon distribution of 
> modified executables (the modified source seems enough).
>
> In general, I see this as a slight improvement over a couple of poorly 
> written (and not particularly popular anymore, I think) licenses, but 
> wonder what value it provides over other, clearer, copyleft licenses. 
> And given this is greenfield with no (as yet) identified project 
> associated with it, what is the demand for this license?
>
> On 5/8/2025 10:53 PM, Lucy Ada Randall via License-review wrote:
>> The Better Attribution License, previously named the Berkeley 
>> Artistic License, also knowable as the BAL is a simple to read, 
>> copyleft license which is intended to allow for better attribution of 
>> code in cases where GIT or other version control history is 
>> unavailable, e.g. cases in which the source code of the software is 
>> only available as a tar ball. While I was editing my quickly written 
>> first draft of the new “modified version of the license” clause, I 
>> additionally decided that providing a method for creating variants of 
>> this license might be a good idea. The base version of the license is 
>> intended to be copyleft.
>>
>> The full text of the strong copyleft version of the license is 
>> available below:
>>
>> The Better Attribution License
>> I: Metadata: Please see the Metadata file for up-to-date metadata for 
>> this project. This is only the initial metadata as of the 
>> introduction of this license.
>> Project:(project name here)
>> Project Developer:(developer or team name here)
>> Contributors: (list of contributors and contributions separated by 
>> semicolons, if applicable.)
>>
>> II: Definitions
>> Standard Version: The project which is the basis for modified 
>> versions, also known as upstream.
>> Modified Versions: Partial or whole versions of the source code 
>> distributed by the project that have been modified, downstream.
>> The Software refers to the project, which is a collection of files 
>> distributed by the Project Developer, the "Standard Version", and 
>> derivatives of that collection of files created through modification 
>> of the source code, the "Modified Version". Additionally
>>
>> III: License Terms
>> 1. You may make and give away verbatim copies of the source form of 
>> the Standard Version of this Software without restriction, provided 
>> that you duplicate all of the original copyright notices, this 
>> license (including the Metadata file), and associated disclaimers.
>>
>> 2. You may apply bug fixes, portability fixes and other modifications 
>> from the Project Developer or other developers (including yourself) 
>> to enable this software to work with modern tools, new hardware, new 
>> operating systems, etc. You may distribute software modified in such 
>> a way as the Standard Version, so long as you provide the source code 
>> of that modified software free of charge and undue hassle to 
>> purchasers or recievers of said modified software.
>>
>> 3. You may otherwise modify your copy of this Software in any way, 
>> including adding features and self-percieved optimizations of the 
>> source code, provided that your modifications use this license or you 
>> do not distribute the resulting code.
>>
>> 4. You may choose to add your name to the contributors list within 
>> the metadata file, to allow the Project Developer to credit you for 
>> your modifications in the Standard Version of the Software.
>>
>> 5. You may distribute your modified copy of this Software in 
>> executable form, provided that you make it clear that your 
>> distribution of this code is modified, license your code under a 
>> version of this license modified only in the way(s) listed in the 
>> following sub-paragraphs, and provide a method to obtain both the 
>> source of the Standard Version and the source of your Modified 
>> Version free of charge or undue hassle.
>>  a. You may modify your license to change the project and project 
>> developer, labeling your modified version as a the project, and 
>> moving any prior project developer to be the primary Contributor.
>>
>> 6. You may distribute this Software, with or without fee, provided 
>> that you do not advertise the Standard Version of this Software as a 
>> product of your own.
>>
>> 7. Neither the name of the project nor the name, username, handle, 
>> etc, of the project developer or contributors may be used to endorse 
>> or promote products derived from this software without specific prior 
>> written permission.
>>
>> 8. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL 
>> WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED 
>> WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE 
>> AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 
>> DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR 
>> PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER 
>> TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR 
>> PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE
>>
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>
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