[License-review] For Approval: OpenMDW License Agreement, versions 1.1 (OpenMDW-1.1)

[Richard Fontana]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2026 at 4:12 PM McCoy Smith <mccoy at lexpan.law> wrote:
>
> The question in my mind then, is what's the difference between copyright
> termination for a patent assertion (OK, at least under GPLv3 and MPLv2)
> and copyright termination for copyright assertion (several have argued
> that that is impermissible)?

I agree that this can be seen as the central part of the problem,
though there may be some additional ones (I may come back to my OSD 9
concern).

> A few have invoked "software freedom"
> (which I'm not sure how we measure that -- is it the OSD, is it the FSD,
> or something else?) or more explicitly -- Simon in particular -- Freedom
> Zero. Freedom Zero says  you have "[the freedom to *run* the program as
> you wish, for any purpose"
> https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/your-digital-life-is-not-yours
> [emphasis added] That's not a copyright right.* It's probably a patent
> right ("use"). So I'd like to understand more about how we get to the
> rationale that if you sue for patent infringement, it's OK to terminate
> (and that doesn't violate Freedom Zero), but it's absolutely
> impermissible to have the same for copyright infringement. Especially
> since, I think, the mere act of running software is probably not
> something you're going to be able to sue for copyright infringement anyway.

I don't think the FSF Itself has used "Freedom Zero" consistently. In
any case, I read Simon's statement as indicating that there is a
non-OSD-specific 'software freedom' problem with this termination
provision, which is what I think others of us have been suggesting

> FWIW, if your answer is "it's not really grounded in the OSD, or FSD,
> but is more of a gestalt principle around my sense of what is 'software
> freedom,'" that's OK, but you have to understand that OSI is going to
> need to understand the metes and bounds of that principle as we evaluate
> license submissions (both plain old software licenses, and AI licenses)
> going forward, and reasonable minds will likely differ on what is that
> gestalt.

Yes. Incidentally, the OSI should bear in mind that OpenMDW-1.1
functions as a "plain old software license" because it is designed in
part to be used for software. I might view it somewhat differently if
it was presented as, say, a "weights license" only (perhaps submitted
as a special sort of "AI license" under what I gather was contemplated
when the OSAID was adopted). I don't think the OSI should be
classifying this as an "AI license" and adopting some new, presumably
looser, standard of approval for it based on that classification. It
is by design not a license just for models in a narrow sense, it is a
license for code as well as other stuff. If it is approved, someone
could conceivably use it in a completely non-AI-related context
involving just code.

Richard