
On Open Source, licenses and changes - nfrankel
https://blog.frankel.ch/on-opensource-licenses-changes/
======
m4th3r
> Yet, according to Stallman’s definition [of opensource], software needs to
> be free: [Free as a bird, Free as a beer]

This is totally wrong. Stallman focus on freedom to use the software, he never
stated that the software need to be free of charge. Yet, Stallman hates the
word opensource because is it to vague and it does not guarantee the freedom
to the user. Stallman use the term free software and or libre software, and
mean free as in free speech only not free beer. While Free software and
opensource software's definition may overlap a bit, it is not the same, for
example, some opensource license does not allow making a modified version and
using it privately. Free software focus mainly on users' essential freedoms,
while the opensource initiative focus on practical benefits only.

Here is a good read about opensource vs freesoftware:
[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-
point....](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html)

Richard Stallman deploys a lot of effort trying to raise awareness about the
importance of free software please STOP miscoting him.

------
vharuck
>Changing one’s license is in general not a great idea. When somebody uses
your software, they need to be able to trust they can use it in the future
under the same terms.

IANAL, but I think this is wrong. Unless the license stipulates that the terms
can be changed by the licensor, then the licensee only has to abide by the
terms from when they agreed. The GPL goes out of its way to make it possible
to use licenses from before what's currently available:

>If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General
Public License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of
following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any
later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does
not specify a version number of the GNU General Public License, you may choose
any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

~~~
duckerude
You can keep using old versions under the original terms, but you'd have to
ignore newer versions of the software, or use a fork.

------
ternaryoperator
The whole OSS licensing field is a true minefield. IMHO, the Creative Commons
folks (CC) have done a _much_ better job at creating a series of clearly
defined licenses. With CC, you can quickly determine the freedoms and
responsibilities conferred by each license.

Meanwhile, in OSS, you have to research the fine distinctions between BSD-2
clause, BSD 3-clause, MIT, etc. Or Apache vs. Eclipse, etc. Even fundamental
distinctions such as between OSS and Free Software (GNU-style) are regularly
misunderstood, as in this article.

I'd like to see the OSI convene the organizations that have issued the various
licenses and get them to agree on a new OSS licensing scheme modeled after the
system used by the Creative Commons.

I think everyone would benefit from that level of clarity.

~~~
type0
> I'd like to see the OSI convene the organizations that have issued the
> various licenses and get them to agree on a new OSS licensing scheme modeled
> after the system used by the Creative Commons.

this is standards proliferate [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

~~~
ternaryoperator
No, licenses are not standards that require code changes to be adopted. The
OSS community has a long history of moving off old licenses to new versions
and the OSI lists many retired licenses due to this. (When Apache replaced
their 1.1 license with the current 2.0 license, there was no complaint about
proliferation. Rather, the community adopted the new license and today 1.1 is
entirely dead.)

~~~
type0
License versions are a different thing. Changing to a completely different one
in practice is a huge undertaking since every past contributor needs to agree
to it

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AdmiralAsshat
Article is good on clarity, but a little light on solutions for the "service-
wrapping" problem. Maybe that was outside of the article's scope. But it does
seem like a problem we have yet to solve. Many have tried, but the ones that
attempt to switch their license to stop Amazon from eating their lunch then
see their popularity plummet and the major distros kick the software out of
their repos.

It's a big gamble, and I imagine most product developers don't wish to
alienate the FOSS community unless they feel their survival is at stake, so
perhaps this is where the FOSS community needs to step in and provide better
guidance.

~~~
zozbot234
The Affero GPL is a FLOSS, OSI-certified license that by-and-large solves the
"software as a service" problem, by making sure that if SaaS providers
publically perform a version of the software over a computer network, they
also have to make that version available under the license. This is quite
consistent with the general norms of FLOSS development and does not actively
introduce discrimination over private use of the software, as other licenses
do.

------
starkd
This article was a light read. Well written and clearly stated, but rather
short on new ideas. In particular, it would be interesting to know how good
the source available licenses - e.g. Redis' RSAL license - are at addressing
the cloud-provider issue. Of course, it's not technically open source, but
does it work?

------
opqpo
Never understood the obsession of OSI and their insisting to not give any
protection for the authors. Authors whether individuals or companies should
have the right to prevent their work from being rebranded or sold by others
with minor or even major modification.

How many times did it happen that somebody or organization wrote a complex
piece of software and published it and found that some companies just
rebranded it and even sold their work with little to none added value while
the original authors don't even have the right to complain because this is how
open source works.

Something like BSL [https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-
mariadb/](https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-mariadb/) needs to get more reputation
among solo developers and small companies with little to no funding that
believe in the power of open source while believing also in having the right
of earning a living from their own work.

~~~
zozbot234
> should have the right to prevent their work from being rebranded or sold by
> others

Nope, the right to fork, and to rebrand concurrently with a fork, is critical
to FLOSS development. Even MariaDB itself is a fork.

~~~
opqpo
I am not against forking or introducing modifications, etc.... You can fork
it, change it for your use case as you wish, but just don't bundle my work,
rebrand it and sell it as if it were yours. I meant my work to be free and I
want the legal protection to keep my work free.

~~~
jraph
That would be the NC clause of the Creative Commons licenses. This is not free
/ open source software anymore though because you remove the right of
redistributing the work or the derivative for a fee, which is arguably
desirable for free software to foster. With such a license, you might prevent
business models like the one of Red Hat, which also produce a great quantity
of free software. So while they make money with your work, you can benefit
from this with the availability of free software they built with this money.

If you pick a copyleft license like the (A)GPL, it's right that you allow
people to sell your software, but their customers will be able to require the
source code under this license and will be able make it available to the
world.

Now there are loopholes like the one the company behind the GRSecurity project
exploits.

If anything here is not desirable, you'll probably want to use a more
restrictive license than a FLOSS one, but be careful with all the possible
side effect (people not wanting to use or contribute to a non-free software,
licence incompatibility with libraries and the rest of the ecosystem, etc.

------
axegon_
I've always felt like there's something fundamentally flawed with open source
licenses. It seems that they are all promoting the openness of a fragment of
code but at the same time twisting your hands ever so slightly when you start
using them. All while different licenses are engaged in a fight as to which is
more open. For many years I thought that MIT is the most open one. That is
until recently when I saw wtfpl [1] and truthfully I fell in love with it. At
some point I'll update everything I've ever open sourced to that and I intend
to use it for all the other projects I plan on open sourcing, though I am a
bit short on motivation to get to that lately(for personal reasons, not
because of lack of interest or burnout or anything).

[1] [http://www.wtfpl.net/](http://www.wtfpl.net/)

~~~
ensignavenger
The problem with the WFPL is that it may not be legal in many jurisdictions. I
would encourage you to dual license with the WTFPL and a more legally vetted
license, such as MIT, to allow your software to be used in a wider variety of
jurisdictions.

And thank you for writing open source software!

Edit: The CC0 may be a more legally valid license that accomplishes the same
thing.

~~~
Sir_Substance
I've always been a fan of the sqlite licence:
[https://sqlite.org/copyright.html](https://sqlite.org/copyright.html)

Basically sqlite is public domain if your country recognizes that kind of
thing. If it doesn't, then sqlite doesn't care and will never pursue you.
However, if /you/ care, sqlite will sell you licence. This licence costs
$6000, looks very official and shiny and whatnot, covers all your bases as if
public domain did exist in your country, and sqlite uses the money to continue
funding development.

I'd be inclined to do something very similar with an additional clause stating
that if dedicating to the public domain doesn't free me from liability, then
see $6000 licence. (I thought sqlite had this, but either they've removed it
or I misremember).

------
kemitchell
Anyone have a link on the rollback of the CoronaVirus License? In particular,
I have doubts about "The license change was rollbacked as it was considered at
least partially unlawful."

~~~
nfrankel
Here it is
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200319183105/https://plantuml....](https://web.archive.org/web/20200319183105/https://plantuml.com/license)

I don't find the rollback announcement again, but I distinctively remember the
fact I stated.

