I've been keeping tabs on the GPLv3 dispute for quite some time. It seems to
me that the best solution would be for us to write our own open source
license - one that would be written specifically to uphold the ten rights in
the open source definition.
I'm not a lawyer, and this is fairly rough, but below is my attempt at an
initial draft. It largely resembles the GPLv2, though it differs in several
key points. I like to refer to the idea as Copyup, because the license gives
the users extended rights of modification, but does not as go to the extent
the GPL does to uphold ethical freedoms, so we're sitting 90 degrees between
the two extremes ;-)
Open Source License
Version 0.1, June 2007
Copyright (C) Joshua David Williams 2007. Everyone is permitted to distribute
this document, but modification is strictly prohibited.
Preamble
In contrast to the GNU General Public License, this document does not limit
the use of a program by any means, regardless of ethics and freedom. This
license grants you, the user, full permission to copy, modify, and distribute
this software.
1. This license applies to any program which contains a notice by the
copyright owner that the information may be distributed under the Open Source
License. This document describes the terms and conditions of the distribution
of the program's source code and binary executables, but does not apply to
the usage of said program, including intellectual property created by the
program. This license also applies to the distribution of any modifications
made to the program.
This license is not restricted to any form of distribution, including, but not
limited to, certain products. The terms and conditions described in this
license must be upheld under every circumstance. The program may be
distributed by any means, alongside any other programs, regardless of their
license.
By "program", we mean any type of data, regardless of format, which performs a
defined set of actions on any type of computer system. The term "binary
executable" refers to the data the computer system executes, which is
typically stored in the binary numeral system. We refer to the term "source
code" as the preferred means of modifying said program, which is the original
document written by the author of the program before it was compiled as a
binary executable.
Hereinafter, each licensee will be addressed as "you", and the copyrighted
information in question will be referred to as "the program".
2. You may distribution copies of the program freely, with or without a fee,
under the terms and conditions of this license, provided access to the source
code is not provided only at an additional cost. The distribution of the
source code alongside the binary executables is not necessary, but you must
maintain full notices that the program is licensed under this document, in
addition to information regarding obtaining the source code.
The source code must be made available at a small or no additional fee,
provided that the user obtained the binary executables legally. This includes
the payment of a fee in order to obtain the program. This license does not,
however, require that you charge a fee for the distribution of the program.
3. This license hereby grants you permission to modify the program and
distribute the results in any means desired, under the condition that this
document is distributed alongside the modified program, and that no terms of
this license are broken. This includes, but is not limited to, modifying the
original source code to extend the program's functionality.
Distribution of the modified program must be clearly defined as such; the
original author can not be held responsible for changes made by others. The
original author may require that modified copies be renamed in order to
uphold his or her integrity. Modifications are subject to this license
agreement, and fees are not required for the distribution of the program or
its modifications, but they are permitted.
4. Distribution of the program may not be restricted to any set of persons or
groups of endeavor. Discrimination of any kind is not permitted by this
license for any reason whatsoever. Any program released under this license
may be distributed with or without a fee to anyone, regardless of sex, skin
color, religious or political affiliations, or ethnic background.
5. This program may be distributed alongside other programs of any other
license. This license may or may not apply to each individual program this
program is distributed with. However, this license does not permit
discrimination against the distribution of this program alongside other
programs, regardless of their license.
6. This program, including modifications made to it, in addition to its source
code, may be distributed under any means. This includes, but is not limited,
electronic mail, compact disks, paper, and magnetic media. Any restriction of
distribution method, such as restrictions to only one type of distribution,
are strictly prohibited by this license.
--
It's a commonly known fact that most intruders come in through Windows.
Joshua David Williams wrote:
> I'm not a lawyer, and this is fairly rough, but below is my attempt at an
> initial draft.
You probably don't want do design a license without involving a
competent lawyer. We don't expect lawyers to write kernel code, either.
-hpa
On 6/18/07, H. Peter Anvin <[email protected]> wrote:
> You probably don't want do design a license without involving a
> competent lawyer. We don't expect lawyers to write kernel code, either.
True enough, and I realized this when I wrote my initial post, but it's not
what I wrote so much as the concept. I haven't seen the idea come up in any
threads, so I thought I'd throw it out there.
Open source and free software are clearly two different things, so it doesn't
make sense that an open source project would use a free software license. The
FSF has made it very clear that their objectives are very different from
ours.
The GPLv2 is a great license, but it's not perfect. The FSF recognised several
of the problems when they introduced the first public draft of v3. Since they
are heading in an opposite direction from the open source community, I
believe that we are now facing a clear dividing line between the two camps.
We cannot cling to the fifteen year-old license forever, expecting to never
be burnt.
If we can't adopt the GPLv3, it seems obvious to me that we need our own
solution.
--
It's a commonly known fact that most intruders come in through Windows.
I think that one of the main problems with the GPLv2 versus
GPLv3 dispute is the discord that it saws between developers
around the world. Right now, 66% is GPL, 6.5% is LGPL (using
the stats from freshmeat here), 6% BSD, and the rest can
be neglected ;) (see bottom of http://freshmeat.net/stats/)
That means that if someone decides that he wants to write
free software (and license it under the GPL), he can choose
from a large code base.
What those stats don't say, however - is how many people
said "version 2 or later", and how many said "version 2".
If next people start to write software - they might be
forced to use GPLv2 because they want to use other software
that was only version 2. While others will start to write
new software under version 3 (if only because they don't
know better - like 90% of the people who copied the template
with "version 2 or later").
The result is that two seperate groups of software will
start to emerge that cannot use from eachother. And because
both will be consirably large, that is a Bad Thing(tm).
Imho, it is much worse that this seperation of the pool of
open source code will occur than everyone using version 2,
or everyone using version 3, and the effect that that will
have.
Now, writing yet another license for the linux kernel is
therefore NOT the solution - if you get my drift.
--
Carlo Wood <[email protected]>
On 6/18/07, Carlo Wood <[email protected]> wrote:
> Now, writing yet another license for the linux kernel is
> therefore NOT the solution - if you get my drift.
The new license could be written to be compatible with both versions of the
GPL. IMO, a new license written from the OSS perspective would behoove us
greatly in that we are no longer subject to this Higher Calling of the FSF
and the Church of Emacs.
$0.02
--
It's a commonly known fact that most intruders come in through Windows.
On Mon, 18 Jun 2007, Joshua David Williams wrote:
> On 6/18/07, Carlo Wood <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Now, writing yet another license for the linux kernel is
>> therefore NOT the solution - if you get my drift.
>
> The new license could be written to be compatible with both versions of the
> GPL. IMO, a new license written from the OSS perspective would behoove us
> greatly in that we are no longer subject to this Higher Calling of the FSF
> and the Church of Emacs.
no it couldn't
the GPLv2 says that if you combine it with any other license the result
must be GPLv2
the GPLv3 says that if you combine it with any other license the result
must be GPLv3
so you have one requirement saying that the result must be GPLv2 and
another that says you must be GPLv3. there isn't any way to resolve this
conflict.
David Lang
> If we can't adopt the GPLv3, it seems obvious to me that we need our own
> solution.
Its called GPL v2.
Alan
On Tue, 19 Jun 2007, Alan Cox wrote:
>> If we can't adopt the GPLv3, it seems obvious to me that we need our own
>> solution.
>
> Its called GPL v2.
Its not the Spirit of the GPLv3 I object to, its the hangover the next
morning.
Why do I see this horse-shaped hole that people continue to want to hit
with sticks?
--
"ANSI C says access to the padding fields of a struct is undefined.
ANSI C also says that struct assignment is a memcpy. Therefore struct
assignment in ANSI C is a violation of ANSI C..."
- Alan Cox
On Jun 18, 2007, [email protected] wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jun 2007, Joshua David Williams wrote:
>> On 6/18/07, Carlo Wood <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Now, writing yet another license for the linux kernel is
>>> therefore NOT the solution - if you get my drift.
>>
>> The new license could be written to be compatible with both versions of the
>> GPL.
> no it couldn't
It could. Just not as part of the same work. I.e., it wouldn't be
compatible in both directions, so it wouldn't make some of the most
vocal Linux developers in that other thread happy.
But you could achieve one-way compatibility in various ways:
GPLv2+, after GPLv3 is published, and before there's a GPLv4, is
pretty much it.
One could also come up with any license that permits use under the
terms of the GPLv2 or the GPLv3.
One could also dual-license under GPLv2 and GPLv3.
FWIW, IANAL.
--
Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
Joshua David Williams wrote:
> I've been keeping tabs on the GPLv3 dispute for quite some time. It seems to
> me that the best solution would be for us to write our own open source
> license - one that would be written specifically to uphold the ten rights in
> the open source definition.
Your solution for license fragmentation is more license fragmentation? GPLv2 is
a damn good license. If we're going to undertake the arduous task of
relicensing the kernel, it had better be worth the payoff. GPLv3 is being
considered because:
1) A lot of the GPLv2 code in the kernel was explicitly authorized by the
contributor to be distributed under future versions of the GPL published by the
FSF. This means we only have to go through the headache of getting
authorization to relicense for a much smaller code base than the whole kernel.
2) The influence of the FSF and ubiquity of GNU tools means that a large chunk
of code is going to be released under GPLv3. This cannot be said for your license.
> I'm not a lawyer
GPLv3 was written by a whole bunch of lawyers, all of them trained and
experienced to consider the extended ramifications of the precise wording of the
license in numerous jurisdictions worldwide. The current draft is already a
compromise between GPLv2 and earlier GPLv3 drafts. It's quite possible that the
kernel will never relicense, and that's okay, because we already have a good
license, the GPLv2, which was also written by a lawyer.
-- Chris