The Open Software License, Version 3.0

Posted Aug 16, 2005 4:01 UTC (Tue) by sanjoy (guest, #5026)
In reply to: The Open Software License, Version 3.0 by JoeBuck
Parent article: The Open Software License, Version 3.0

It implicitly has an aggregation exception because the OSL copyleft applies to
derivative 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 (guest, #4065) [Link] (7 responses)

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 (guest, #6227) [Link] (6 responses)

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] (4 responses)

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] (3 responses)

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 (guest, #2786) [Link] (2 responses)

> 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 (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

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 (subscriber, #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,
Wol

Clarity and terminology

Posted Aug 25, 2005 21:15 UTC (Thu) by dmag (guest, #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.)