
Some Notes for License Submitters - jashkenas
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2018-June/003418.html
======
jashkenas
Since there appears to be interest (hurrah!), some highlights from the thread:

Perens: "There are already too many Open Source licenses. If we never accepted
another, that would not be a particularly bad thing."

[http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.o...](http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.opensource.org/2018-June/003371.html)

Mitchell: "Plain English legal drafting is making inspiring headway, as a
craft. Open source licensing shouldn't cut itself out of the benefits."

[http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.o...](http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.opensource.org/2018-June/003372.html)

Tzeng: "It strikes me that there's no real reason for the rest of us to bother
being here if the "old hands" decide what to do regardless of the consensus of
the list. Evidently any license submission can be delayed indefinitely."

[http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.o...](http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.opensource.org/2018-June/003375.html)

Randall: "But, one thing open source and free software have demonstrated is
that chaotic, rowdy groups of humans can accomplish amazing things together,
even despite (and sometimes because of) all their imperfections. Please be
patient with us, but persistent. I promise you will get an answer."

[http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.o...](http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.opensource.org/2018-June/003410.html)

Perens: "There aren't that many actually useful variations on the licenses
that actually pass the OSD. There are actually only three useful licenses, a
gift-style, a sharing-with-rules-style, and something in between. Given Affero
and GPL3 terms on those three, essentially all purposes for Open Source can be
carried out. All else is embellishment."

[http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.o...](http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.opensource.org/2018-June/003413.html)

Villa: "I'm pretty sure that, contra Bruce, it isn't OSI's position that open
source needs to stay forever trapped in amber, but a reasonable outside
observer (like Kyle!) could certainly conclude otherwise."

[http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.o...](http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.opensource.org/2018-June/003418.html)

Fontana: "I'm generally struck by how conservative, technically and perhaps
legally clueless and hidebound contemporary proprietary software license
agreements tend to be - though not in the same way as open source licenses,
which are vulnerable to similar criticisms."

[http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.o...](http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.opensource.org/2018-June/003419.html)

Perens (quoting): " > A bolder new license might consider: What does an
economically viable open source look like?

My usual answer for this is that if you have to ask how you're going to make
money, you're the wrong person to make Open Source. Nowhere in the mission of
OSI is any mandate to provide authors with a viable business method."

[http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.o...](http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.opensource.org/2018-June/003423.html)

Mitchell: "Hacker-types still favor MIT/BSD over Apache 2.0. Facebook followed
suit after the PATENTS tragicomedy. If you don't trust FSF---or OSI for that
matter---and you don't have a legal department large enough for an open
licensing wonk, you want a license you can read. You want a purpose-built tool
that directly expresses your purpose, and little more."

[http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.o...](http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.opensource.org/2018-June/003425.html)

Perens: "We are asking of you only one thing. Go forth and use your license.
We are not stopping you. Just don't call it Open Source."

[http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.o...](http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
review_lists.opensource.org/2018-June/003426.html)

~~~
MrBingley
> My usual answer for this is that if you have to ask how you're going to make
> money, you're the wrong person to make Open Source. Nowhere in the mission
> of OSI is any mandate to provide authors with a viable business method.

Indeed, it is a principle of open source that people can freeload off your
work. As soon as an author restricts their work to non-commercial use or
commercial-with-a-fee (which is entirely reasonable), it is no longer
considered "open source".

> We are asking of you only one thing. Go forth and use your license. We are
> not stopping you. Just don't call it Open Source.

Go ahead, call it open source. The OSI has no trademark over the term, and the
idea that their narrow definition is the only "official" one is a load of
crap. There is plenty of room for what constitutes open source that doesn't
fall underneath their umbrella.

Edit: I understand this opinion is controversial. If you disagree, please
comment and explain why.

~~~
kemitchell
> Indeed, it is a principle of open source that people can freeload off your
> work. As soon as an author restricts their work to non-commercial use or
> commercial-with-a-fee (which is entirely reasonable), it is no longer
> considered "open source".

I'd challenge that. Under copyleft and other "share-alike" or "reciprocal"
licenses, loading isn't free for everyone, in particular those who create
software. There's a cost in sharing source and rights for new code.

I think the community as a whole has forgotten that, because copyleft licenses
have fallen behind the times. With a glaring, unpatched vulnerability like the
ASP loophole affecting most copyleft code, the terms of the licenses no longer
implement the deal their authors wanted to make. Which is why I proposed the
license in the second quote you pulled.

~~~
MrBingley
That's a good point. For copyleft licenses, reciprocation does not occur
through payment, but by users open-sourcing their code. In that case it's fair
not to expect reimbursement.

I read your license, and I like the idea. It does seem a bit complicated, but
I guess that's inherent in having to wade through payments and private
licenses and such. I'm curious, was the LR-0 approved by the OSI? I can't find
it on their website.

~~~
kemitchell
Reciprocation _can_ occur via payment! That business model is called "selling
exceptions" in FSF-speak and "dual licensing" by most everyone else. MySQL
pioneered it, decades ago. Basically: "If you can't meet the conditions in
LICENSE, buy a different license from us." That's exactly the model
licensezero.com tries to make available to independent developers, as a
service.

And thank you for reading the license! I've probably poured more time into
that document than any other in my career. You're right: there is some
inherent complexity in what it attempts to do, compared to permissive open
source licenses like MIT or Apache.

Since submitting the license to OSI for approval, the discussion has
repeatedly gone off the rails, consuming months of time and thousands upon
thousands of words on the mailing list. The silver lining: accepting that OSI
approval won't be forthcoming, soon or at all, and that it isn't worth what I
thought it was, frees me up to focus even more sharply on clarity and
simplicity. If you're interested, I'd love your feedback on this post-OSI
"fork":

[https://github.com/licensezero/parity-public-
license/blob/ma...](https://github.com/licensezero/parity-public-
license/blob/master/LICENSE.mustache)

I've already had some great feedback from others. A few let me thank them
publicly in the repo.

------
mabynogy
Programmers should be paid for their work on OSS projects.

~~~
kazinator
Programmers should be paid if they are asked to implement someone else's
requirements.

There need be no structure for paying programmers who invent their own
requirements and thereby just implement whatever they want.

The mass market proprietary software model is indeed based on the process of
inventing and implementing requirements and then convincing paying users to
value and adopt those requirements and then pay for a copy of the
implementation.

That doesn't work for free software, because it is given away; those who like
the requirements and their implementation just help themselves to a copy.

The way to get paid, then, is either via donations/crowdfunding, or else to be
employed working on customizing open source stuff to specific requirements.

That latter kind of work cannot be the only OSS there is. Someone first has to
develop the stuff that is then adopted, and a business forms around it. Those
somebodies usually just put in the uncompensated time.

~~~
kemitchell
I think you're absolutely right, if and only if we set "open source" equal to
"permissive open source" under licenses like MIT, BSD, and Apache 2.

But I don't think your view holds if we include share-alike licenses like GPL
and AGPL in "open source". Many would-be-users' business models, especially
closed, proprietary software development, inherently conflict with sharing
alike. Offering software, for free, under terms that require sharing alike
therefore preserves a business model: sell alternative licenses, or exceptions
to your open source license's share-alike requirements.

That business model directly motivated my work on the License Zero Reciprocal,
a license I submitted to OSI. That led eventually to the thread linked by this
post.

If you're interested in other thoughts along these lines, I've collected mine
on a blog: [https://blog.licensezero.com/](https://blog.licensezero.com/)

~~~
kazinator
The view basically holds for any software that large numbers of users can use
without paying a cent: everything from binary-only "shareware" to "freemium"
apps, to open-source-but-not-free things like the Pine e-mail client, to BSD
to GPL.

If you give away copies, there is no "business model" other than some sort of
custom work, or some non-free versions whose copies you do sell or whatever.

~~~
kemitchell
I think you're right again, but only with another limitation: concerning
applications, not libraries, frameworks, or development tools.

The latter function as components or unfinished goods, not independently
usable software. The right to "use" such incomplete programs or software-
production tools is meaningless to end-users. It becomes meaningful to them
only when parts and tools are incorporated into, or used to build, other
software. Software that often _isn 't_ open source, by anyone's definition.

If the finished good is proprietary software that the creator will distribute
to users, GPL is a blocker. Distributing copies of the final product will
trigger GPL's copyleft conditions. If the finished good is software that its
creator will run _for_ others, as software as a service, AGPL and other
network-copyleft licenses are blockers. Providing the service to users over a
network will trigger requirements to provide source.

