this provision is supposed to apply only to the original upstream licensor [LWN.net]

this provision is supposed to apply only to the original upstream licensor

Posted Feb 26, 2013 16:22 UTC (Tue) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
In reply to: this provision is supposed to apply only to the original upstream licensor by rfontana
Parent article: FOSDEM: Richard Fontana on copyleft-next

Any entity that wishes to engage in copyleft/proprietary dual licensing already has to either reject any external contribution that would be adjudged significant enough to be copyrightable, or demand a contributor agreement of some sort from everyone who wants to contribute. They also have to either start from nothing, or be derived from existing permissively-licensed code.

As such, I really can't see what this license aims to achieve. Anyone who wasn't planning to engage in the behaviour it's targeting doesn't need it; anyone who was planning to engage in such behaviour won't use it.

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this provision is supposed to apply only to the original upstream licensor

Posted Feb 26, 2013 19:40 UTC (Tue) by rfontana (subscriber, #52677) [Link]

> Any entity that wishes to engage in copyleft/proprietary dual
> licensing already has to either reject any external contribution
> that would be adjudged significant enough to be copyrightable, or
> demand a contributor agreement of some sort from everyone who wants
> to contribute. They also have to either start from nothing, or be
> derived from existing permissively-licensed code.

Correct.

> As such, I really can't see what this license aims to
> achieve. Anyone who wasn't planning to engage in the behaviour it's
> targeting doesn't need it;

This is just one of many features of copyleft-next that might be
attractive to some developers. But I suppose I was thinking also that
some developers might like the fact that here, for the first time, is
a license that takes a stand against this behavior.

> anyone who was planning to engage in such
> behaviour won't use it.

That is really the main thing the license seeks to achieve through
this provision. There are benefits to keeping a copyleft license
'pure' by warding off use of it for copyleft/proprietary
dual-licensing. As an example, it will minimize the problem of
pecuniarily-motivated unreasonably-restrictive interpretations of the
license. It will also enhance the ethical reputation of the license
and the community of developers choosing to use it.