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The Open Software License, Version 3.0
In December, 2004, a committee tasked by the European Commission issued a report [PDF] on
open source licensing. This report concluded that, while the existing open
source licenses achieved a number of important goals, none was 100% suited
to the task of licensing software in Europe. The shortcomings they found
led the committee to suggest that the EU should adopt either a modified
version of the Open
Software License or a completely new license drafted with European
requirements in mind.
Most of the problems found by this committee were related to terminology. Most open source licenses, for example, allow the licensed software to be redistributed. Under the European interpretation, however, "redistribute" has a narrower meaning; in particular, it does not include acts like making the software available for general download on the net. The essential right for this sort of redistribution is "communicate to the public." Without an explicit grant of the right to communicate the licensed code to the public, the possibility remains that some court, somewhere, could conclude that putting a tarball on a web site is a violation of the license. "Virality" is another concern of the authors, who see the GPL is being rather more "viral" than the alternative licenses. In particular, the authors see dynamic linkage as a barrier over which the concept of a "derived work" cannot cross:
The viral effect through mere dynamic linkage (also called "strong
copyleft") is a much more debated question, and currently discussed
on its legal grounds. From our point of view, there is no legal
provision in the EC 91/250 directive on which this viral effect
could be grounded. On the contrary, when a program dynamically
linked with another, no code is reproduced in the program as such:
the only reproduction of code that is made occurs in the RAM of the
computer, where both the programs are "merged".
The Free Software Foundation, instead, does not feel that the type of linking used affects the copyright status of the resulting program. This distinction is important; it could, for example, affect the status of proprietary kernel modules. Because they disagree with the FSF's interpretation, the report's authors shy away from the GPL, even though other "copyleft" licenses contain similar language - and copyleft is what the authors say they want. A few other details caught their attention. Licenses in Europe, for example, are generally not allowed to outlast the corresponding intellectual property protection period. The terms of a copyright license thus cannot be imposed after the covered work has gone out of copyright, should that ever be allowed to happen again. Some details in warranty disclaimers are different, and there are certain types of warranty which cannot be disclaimed. In response to this report, Lawrence Rosen, the author of the Open Software License, has announced a draft version 3.0 of the OSL [PDF] for review. The draft is annotated so that it is easy to see what has changed from the current version (2.1). Most of the changes are fairly obvious given the discussion above: the OSL now explicitly grants the right to "communicate" the software, for example. The license is no longer "perpetual"; instead, the copyright and patent grants are for the copyright and patent protection periods, respectively. There are a couple of new terms which might not be popular with all users of this license, however. The "acceptance" clause now includes the following text:
If You distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work or a
Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under the
circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to the
terms of this License.
This language is a response to concerns about whether a license can truly be binding in Europe if the licensee has not explicitly accepted it. The "reasonable effort under the circumstances" might include an active copyright acceptance step required at download time or when the software is installed. It is unclear what might be expected of a distributor shipping OSL-licensed software mixed in with thousands of other packages. The new license also adds:
Unless You obtain a separate license or a waiver of this sentence
from the Licensor, (i) You must display Licensor's copyright and
patent notices on copies of the Original Work and Derivative Works
that You distribute, in the same places and with the same
prominence as You display Your own copyright and patent notices,
and (ii) You must display a statement to the effect that "Your work
is a Derivative Work of Licensor's Original Work licensed under the
Open Software License version 3.0" in copies of Derivative Works
that You distribute, in the same places and with the same
prominence as You display Your own trademarks.
This looks like the return of the unlamented BSD advertising clause. It is less onerous, however, in that it only requires attribution in places where the redistributor is asserting copyright claims. Still, a splash screen for an application built from several OSL-licensed libraries could get unwieldy. Mr. Rosen states:
This change has nothing to do with the other changes I made in
response to the EC proposal for a license that conforms more
closely to their language and needs. It was made because certain
open source companies who contribute free software have told me
they need a way to prevent downstream distributors from simply
making it appear that the new distributors -- and not the original
author -- are the ones responsible for the work.
It is not clear how much of a problem this has been in the real world, and whether it truly needs fixing. The OSL is not a hugely popular license; Freshmeat claims that the OSL applies to 0.15% of the projects listed there. There are some important projects using the OSL, however, including Rails, Globus, ImageMagick, and sparse. This license is well respected and carries a certain influence. Its importance could grow if it comes to be seen as the license to use for those who are especially concerned about adherence to European law. So this proposed update is significant. For those who are interested, the discussion is happening now on the Open Source Initiative's license-discuss mailing list. (Log in to post comments)
Open Software License Posted Aug 15, 2005 19:25 UTC (Mon) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227) [Link] It's called the Open Software License, not the Open Source License.
Open Software License Posted Aug 15, 2005 19:31 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Sigh. I knew that, really did. Fixed now. Off for more coffee.
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 15, 2005 19:47 UTC (Mon) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] Does the OSL now have anything equivalent to the "mere aggregation" clause of the GPL? If not, it seems to still be a violation to ship an OSL work on a CD-ROM that also contains other works whose licensing terms are in any way contract the OSL (in particular, any GPL'd works).
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 16, 2005 4:01 UTC (Tue) by sanjoy (subscriber, #5026) [Link] It implicitly has an aggregation exception because the OSL copyleft applies toderivative works, not to collective works (which you get by 'mere aggregation'). Though I wish the license explicitly stated this distinction (as the Creative Commons sharealike licenses do) rather than leaving it to be inferred from the defintional boundaries in (US) copyright law -- and I brought up this point in an email on the license-discuss list.
Clarity and terminology Posted Aug 16, 2005 5:35 UTC (Tue) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] Not just US law, but whatever county it is being interpreted in. From the article it looks like one of the goals is to handle unusual aspects of other copyright laws (like Germany).
As an aside, I wish they would avoid using the term "viral" to refer to copyleft where merging (though linking or header files) is considered a derivative work because it is misleading. In the case where more software licenses are involved, it would be a copyright violation. When the GPL is involved, is is a copyright violation. I see no difference other than in the GPL case you have the _option_ to dual-license your code under the GPL (or any compatible license) to avoid the infringement. You can always choose not to use the software in question.
Clarity and terminology Posted Aug 16, 2005 14:30 UTC (Tue) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227) [Link] Quite a few open source licenses don't have that behavior, though. I can merge BSD code with code under any other license, for example. Compared to proprietary licenses, sure, GPL code is no more "dangerous" to mix in with your own, but compared to some other open source licenses, the GPL is unattractive to proprietary developers. Whether you actually care about those developers is the distinction between whether the GPL is good or bad, I guess.
Clarity and terminology Posted Aug 16, 2005 16:31 UTC (Tue) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] No matter what you think of the GPL, it seems unfair to describe this characteristic as "viral", though - this term seems to be rooted in the misconception that when you incorporate GPL'ed code into your own project, you *have* to GPL your project as well.
Which you don't: you also have the option of removing the offending GPL'ed code. And that is of course assuming that you distributed the software at all in the first place, as opposed to using it for internal purposes only.
Clarity and terminology Posted Aug 18, 2005 18:04 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] You said it yourself. If I want to incorporate ANY GPL code into my project, I have to make my ENTIRE project GPL-compatible. The only alternative, as you say, is to not incorporate the GPLed code.
So how can you possibliy claim that the GPL is not viral? Sounds pretty clear-cut to me!
Clarity and terminology Posted Aug 18, 2005 19:32 UTC (Thu) by oak (subscriber, #2786) [Link] > If I want to incorporate ANY GPL code into my project, I have to make my> ENTIRE project GPL-compatible. I'm not sure what you mean by entire. If it's for example a Linux distribution, you need to have as GPL compatible only the part that can be legally interpreted as derivative works. (The definition of what is derivative works is not so clear-cut though.) > The only alternative, as you say, is to not incorporate the GPLed code. Or ask the copyright holders for a license for the code that allows incorporating the code. This is a base of e.g. business around Qt and MySQL. These are the same options as with proprietary code/products. With GPL you just have the additional possibility of licensing your derived work as GPL. Calling GPL "viral" is about equal to calling proprietary products "encouraging copyright infringement" because you don't have means to legally distribute derivate works freely (free in the "free beer" sense)...
Clarity and terminology Posted Aug 18, 2005 23:09 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] That's a good point about the term "virus." A biological virus doesn't just tempt a cell to make more virus. It enters the cell by force and forces the cell to make more virus. GPL, on the other hand, is strictly quid pro quo.I think there was some incorrect reference to "GPL-compatible" in this thread. If I have a piece of code A that I'm licensed only under GPL to distribute, and I write some code B and combine them to form program AB, and then I distribute AB, I must license all of the code, including my B code, to the recipients under GPL. Not GPL compatible, but GPL itself. I can separately distribute just my B code under any license I please. The GPL-compatible license comes into play if I want to add in code C, which someone else wrote. If I distribute ABC, I must distribute all of it -- A, B, and C -- under GPL. That means that the author of C must license C to me under some kind of license that gives me the power to redistribute it under GPL. Such a license is GPL-compatible.
Clarity and terminology Posted Aug 25, 2005 7:22 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] You don't have to SEPARATELY distribute your code B under a different licence at all.
You can distribute your combined work and just say "A is GPL, therefore B must be GPL too. But B is also X-licence, if the recipient wishes to extract it and use it elsewhere".
It's then the recipient's responsibility to make sure he doesn't accidentally include A when he takes B code to use in his product C.
Cheers,
Clarity and terminology Posted Aug 25, 2005 21:15 UTC (Thu) by dmag (subscriber, #17775) [Link] If you are going to say that the GPL is viral, then you have to say Copyright is viral. Windows code is just as viral as the GPL. (Try incorporating code from Windows 95 into your application. Even if you only include some of the Windows 95 binaries, and not the source, you will still be in trouble.)
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 16, 2005 10:39 UTC (Tue) by dw (subscriber, #12017) [Link] As a regular reader of LWN I've often wondered what you mean by "important" when applied to open source projects of various kinds. In this case, the important label is being applied to Rails, the Ruby web framework that only in the last 6 months or more has really gained the social spotlight.
I don't know of any people using Rails yet in production, most are still only toying with it. It is probably a philosophical can-of-worms opener, but I can't help but wonder what your definition of important is. :)
David.
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 18, 2005 18:19 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] "Important" usually refers to mindshare, not installed numbers. Mailing list, IRC, and blog traffic are usually pretty good indicators. By these measures, Ruby on Rails has become very important in the past 6 months. But, if you want production sites, check out basecamphq.com or the rubyonrails.com homepage for more.
If importance only depended on installed copies then SPICE would be a non-starter. In reality, SPICE was one of the more influential programs to come out of the last 3 decades.
NOT APPLIED TO RAILS Posted Aug 22, 2005 20:30 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] David Heinemeier Hansson, author of Ruby on Rails, tells me he has never heard of the OSL, and intends to stick with the MIT license. What Rails were we talking about?Bruce
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 16, 2005 16:57 UTC (Tue) by sanjoy (subscriber, #5026) [Link] The acceptance clause is not new. It was in v2.1 but got moved around in the paragraph (so the red annotations show it as an addition in the new spot).
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 16, 2005 17:41 UTC (Tue) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link] A better term than "viral" is "transitive". Virusses self-propagate -- enter into other systems and infect them and reproduce. Licenses are not allowed to do that under current laws in the developed world, thank goodness, and the GPL certainly doesn't attempt to do that. The notable fact about the GPL is that some of the requirements are "transitive" -- you are allowed to use GPL'ed software under certain terms only if you extend the same terms to users of the software which you have combined with the GPL'ed software. This is a requirement on your use, and it is a transitive requirement. It is not viral.
"vaccinating" or "freedom preserving" Posted Aug 18, 2005 9:04 UTC (Thu) by ber (subscriber, #2142) [Link] As the GNU GPL tries to preserve the freedom of software users and developers, it has a "vaccinating" or "freedom preserving" aspect.Proprietary software is "viral" in the sense that you are often drawing much more software in because it often works best with other proprietary software. The motivation behind this is clear, it is a lot of effort to make software work together and in the proprietary world you are payed by new features and updates.
"vaccinating" or "freedom preserving" Posted Aug 18, 2005 18:26 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] That argument sounds pretty thin, don't you think? If a closed-source program required its files to be manipulated only by other closed-source programs then, yes, that program would be viral. Short of that, it's not.
"vaccinating" or "freedom preserving" Posted Aug 21, 2005 16:42 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] In practice, they often do. Either you must agree to keep information to yourself (signing an NDA), or you are forbidden from distributing crypto keys, or you cannot reverse-engineer an algorithm (because of the DMCA and equivalent European legislation).Even regular copyright seems to abide closed-sourceness, if we read Adobe's attempts to enforce digital restriction management in PDF. This is embedded in the specification for the PDF format, which is otherwise open. It is hard to see how restriction management can be done in free software, since it might be easily removed. According to your definition, many document formats, protocol specifications, etc. would be "viral".
Blast, it's not /GPL/ v.3! Posted Aug 16, 2005 18:16 UTC (Tue) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] I glanced at the headline, saw ``License'' and ``v.3'', and filled the blank with ``GNU General Public''. That's what I get by going for the story before my mind has caught up. Speaking of needing more coffee...
Blast, it's not /GPL/ v.3! Posted Aug 18, 2005 0:52 UTC (Thu) by pengo (guest, #7787) [Link] You weren't the only one :)
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 18, 2005 7:30 UTC (Thu) by tsr2 (subscriber, #4293) [Link] concerns about whether a license can truly be binding in Europe if the licensee has not explicitly accepted it. I wonder how the licensee can then be licensed, if they are using a piece of software without accepting the license. Is this really any different to the US? Surely it's illegal to use someone else's copyrighted work, without accepting the terms it's licensed under, regardless of whether you are in Europe or the US?
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 18, 2005 9:10 UTC (Thu) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link] Depends on where you are and what you mean with 'use'. Not all use requires a license. A text, for example, is something you normally can expect to have the right to read without adhering to any licenses. That, however, is not always true for computer programs. (IANAL, etc)
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 18, 2005 22:48 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] That's a good point, which people always miss because of incorrect wording such as "whether a license can be truly binding." In the US, a copyright license is never "binding." Copyright law is binding, and the license unbinds. A license permits, it doesn't restrict. You don't violate the license, you violate the copyright.I'm just guessing, but I'll bet the difference is that in Europe a copyright license is more of a contract: In exchange for the right to distribute my code, you promise to license your own code that you add to it to the public in certain ways. The damage you do by breaking your promise can be more than the damage you do simply by distributing my code without my permission. But if you didn't accept the "license" terms, there is no contract, and all you owe me is the damage you caused by the copyright violation.
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 25, 2005 11:35 UTC (Thu) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] Have you ever removed the Windows XP-Home registry entry that limits thefunctionality of XP-Home? An alert box pops up and tells you "by removing this item, you violate the license". Afterwards, you can log in as admin in normal mode, create "normal" users, and thus do the most basic things to make XP-Home a bit more secure than as delivered. But you violate the license. Copyright, on the other hand, allows exactly this sort of patching. Well, it's not even a patch, it's just removing a registry entry, it's use. It does not touch copyright at all. Microsoft considders licenses as contracts. They try to prevent publication of benchmarks. They had wordings like "you aren't allowed to speek badly of this piece of shit^Wsoftware" in some of their EULAs. They even put some ban of free software into some of their licenses. They actually think that copyright is too generous, and want their license to restrict you further. The fact that you usually don't buy Windows, but a piece of hardware, unavoidable bundled with it, renders this "contract" unenforcible. But that's IMHO and IANAL.
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 25, 2005 15:33 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] That sounds like another example of the same misnomer, then. I'm sure what Microsoft means is "you violate the end user license agreement." That's a contract wherein Microsoft gives you a copyright license in exchange for your promise to do (or not to do) some stuff. If you break that promise, you're no longer entitled to the license. Under ordinary contract law, you'd still have the license but would owe Microsoft money. But there may be some special provision for copyright license sales that says the license becomes automatically revoked.Copyright licenses in the commercial world are typically tied to a contract of sale like this; it's special to the open source world that we give them out unilaterally (albeit with conditions attached). In this case, I'm not entirely sure there's even a relevant copyright license. I think what you get in exchange for your promise not to check that box is the copy of Windows that you physically received.
The fact that you usually don't buy Windows, but a piece of hardware, unavoidably bundled with it, renders this "contract" unenforcible. But that's IMHO and IANAL. That's the first I've heard of that theory, and I can't see any substance to it. I think if the hardware is unavoidably bundled with the software, then you're buying the bundle -- both the hardware and the software. Why would that one component of the computer system be considered not part of the merchandise?
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 18, 2005 19:12 UTC (Thu) by KaiRo (subscriber, #1987) [Link] The advertising clause looks interesting. Say that I have "myapp" licensed under the OSL3, which counts as a derived work of a bunch of other code from mylib, hisapp, libhers, etc (say they're all stically linked so that we can be sure we are derived) - and all that code is under the OSL3 as well.
Now, if I want to display the name "myapp" e.g. on the title bar, on my download site and other places, I always have to write "myapp based on mylib, hisapp, libhers, ..." and have a package name of "myapp-based-on-mylib-hisapp-libhers-and-others-0.1a.tar.gz"? Nice...
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 25, 2005 7:28 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] But you have a choice.
If my splash screen got unwieldy I have the choice of leaving it out. I don't think the BSD licence lets you do that!
The OSL merely requires that I give *equal* prominence to other peoples copyright as to my own. Should I change the flash screen to read "copyright assorted people, see manual for details", that's perfectly okay according to the OSL. But not according to the 3-clause BSD.
Actually, I think that's a damn neat way of doing things :-)
Cheers,
The Open Software License, Version 3.0 Posted Aug 31, 2005 22:37 UTC (Wed) by sanjoy (subscriber, #5026) [Link] > "That's a damn neat way of doing things"
Then you'll be unhappy that the latest draft of the OSL 3.0
I think the OSL is an excellent license. Debian probably thinks
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