AFL 3.0

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

> Can anyone name for me the license with which it is redundant? Remember,
> in law as in software, close isn't enough!!!!

Note the phrase "completely or partially redundant" in the description of
this license group.  There are terms in the AFL that address questions
such as choice of law that aren't in the Apache 2.0 license.  Likewise,
there are matters that are addressed differently.  But the AFL is
competing with Apache 2.0, BSD, and MIT for the same ecological niche --
simple permissive licenses -- and it is not winning.  I think that's a
pity, but I also see that it's a fact.

Likewise, the OSL wound up in the catchall category because it's a
copyleft license that's incompatible with the GPL (not in your reading
of the GPL, I know, but for social purposes it's the FSF's reading that
counts), and we don't need yet another separate copyleft commons.

> The categories of licenses that OSI has created are, for the most part,
> legally meaningless for purposes of choosing or understanding a license.

Probably so, but that doesn't mean they are meaningless in practice.

--
John Cowan    <cowan@...>     http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
But no living man am I!  You look upon a woman.  Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter.
You stand between me and my lord and kin.  Begone, if you be not deathless.
For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him.

John Cowan wrote:
> Likewise, the OSL wound up in the catchall category because it's a
> copyleft license that's incompatible with the GPL (not in your reading
> of the GPL, I know, but for social purposes it's the FSF's reading that
> counts), and we don't need yet another separate copyleft commons.

Vaguely on this topic, can QPL be moved from this category to
"Superseded licenses"?  It has been mostly obsoleted (and replaced with
the GPL) essentially for the same reason.

Matt Flaschen

 [LR:] John, I think what you just wrote is hogwash. My only concern is how
much time I want to spend arguing with you about this.

I know you served on the License Proliferation Committee, but perhaps
(because hardly anybody's been listening for a while at OSI) you weren't
fully aware of my public and private objections at the time to both the
committee process and its result.

Perhaps you allowed the other participants on the committee, a self-selected
bunch of people some with their own corporate or business motivations, to
convince you that open source licenses are all about "ecological niches" and
"social purposes," or about who's "winning"--just so they could get their
own licenses on the approved list. Because other participants on the
committee talked to me, I know that the decisions of the committee were
political compromises just to get some kind of agreement to demonstrate that
OSI could "solve the license proliferation problem" (whatever that meant!).
I also know that there was no legal analysis of any of the licenses on the
list to determine which had current value under the law and which are
obsolete licenses from our distant past.

You're talking pseudo-law, utterly irrelevant to the choice or understanding
of FOSS licenses.

One of the guiding principles in recent years for OSI's approval of open
source licenses has been the demonstration of uniqueness. I long ago
demonstrated that on this list for the companion OSL and AFL 3.0 licenses.
Placing AFL 3.0 on a "redundant" list is just plain wrong.

/Larry

P.S. I know that others will have comments about other licenses on this OSI
list. If you write about those other licenses, please change the email
topic. I'm narrowing my focus to my own license, which at least some of the
people on the License Proliferation Committee obviously didn't read
carefully and understand.

P.P.S. There is a growing amount of software under AFL 3.0. I'm doing my
best to educate the community why it makes an excellent contributor
agreement to open source projects and companies. But that's another thread,
for people who really care about open source licenses that serve important
purposes.

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

> I know you served on the License Proliferation Committee, but perhaps
> (because hardly anybody's been listening for a while at OSI) you
> weren't fully aware of my public and private objections at the time
> to both the committee process and its result.

Probably not.

> Perhaps you allowed the other participants on the committee,
> a self-selected bunch of people some with their own corporate or
> business motivations, to convince you that open source licenses are
> all about "ecological niches" and "social purposes," or about who's
> "winning"--just so they could get their own licenses on the approved
> list.

That's definitely not the case; the language I used was my own.
In addition, I did my best to ensure (though not immediately --
I had to think the problem through) that the list was a classification,
not a stamp of approval or disapproval.  Someone will still need
to do that work, but it surely won't be the same people -- a committee
for deliberation is one thing, a committee for action quite another.

> Because other participants on the committee talked to me, I know that
> the decisions of the committee were political compromises just to
> get some kind of agreement to demonstrate that OSI could "solve the
> license proliferation problem" (whatever that meant!).

True.  "Nothing is more sacred to a secular age than a well-crafted
political compromise."

> I also know that there was no legal analysis of any of the licenses
> on the list to determine which had current value under the law and
> which are obsolete licenses from our distant past.

Also true, though I wouldn't call any license obsolete.  Some are less
useful going forward than others.

> You're talking pseudo-law, utterly irrelevant to the choice or
> understanding of FOSS licenses.

I'm not talking law *at all*.

> One of the guiding principles in recent years for OSI's approval
> of open source licenses has been the demonstration of uniqueness. I
> long ago demonstrated that on this list for the companion OSL and AFL
> 3.0 licenses.

Absolutely true from a legal point of view.

> Placing AFL 3.0 on a "redundant" list is just plain wrong.

It reflects realities beyond the legal, as I said in my last post.

--
Not to perambulate                 John Cowan <cowan@...>
    the corridors                  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
during the hours of repose
    in the boots of ascension.       --Sign in Austrian ski-resort hotel