[License-review] [Resubmission] ModelGo Zero License, Version 2.0

[Pamela Chestek]

On 4/3/2025 11:10 AM, Josh Berkus wrote:
> On 4/3/25 08:25, Moming Duan wrote:
>>
>> I would like to make a minor correction to MG0-2.0, changing “non- 
>> sublicensable” to “sublicensable,” as it is intended to be the most 
>> permissive license within the ModelGo Licenses family. Currently, I 
>> am still hiring two law students to assist with amending the ModelGo 
>> Licenses (MG0, MG-BY, MG-BY-OS) and am ready to address any feedback 
>> that may arise. Please don't hesitate to provide any suggestions. 
>> Thank you!
>
> Thanks for letting us know.
>
> For attorneys on this list: what does sublicensable mean, in terms of 
> real effects, in a license?
>
Hi Josh,

I don't know if you ever got an answer, but if not sorry for the belated 
response.

There is a substantial difference. Where a license is not sublicensable, 
the downstream user's license is the original one (whatever that may 
be), with all of its rights and obligations.

If one is a sublicensor, the sublicensor can choose what rights they are 
sublicensing, as long as the grant is with the scope of the grant they 
received. So if the licensee/sublicensor was granted a license to copy 
and modify, they could choose to grant a sublicense that only allows 
making copies, not modifying.

The bigger concern in open source is the concept of contract privity, 
which says that a contract is only binding on the parties to it. The 
sublicensee is not a party to the contract between the original licensor 
and original licensee (from whom it got its sublicense), so the original 
licensor has no recourse against the sublicensee if the sublicensee 
breaches the license. The original licensor can only go after the 
original licensee/sublicensor, who then may, or may not, be able to go 
after the sublicensee for breach, depending on what the sublicense said. 
I believe this is why the GPL licenses are not sublicensable; they 
wanted to make sure that there wasn't a way to avoid providing source 
code and meeting the other conditions of the license.

Pam

Pamela S. Chestek
Chestek Legal
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