LWN: Comments on "The Open Software License, Version 3.0"

The Open Software License, Version 3.0

sanjoy — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 22:37:10 +0000

> "That's a damn neat way of doing things"

Then you'll be unhappy that the latest draft of the OSL 3.0
has taken out the new attribution sentence. You're still required
to preserve attribution notices in the source code, though, as
in the OSL 2.1.

I think the OSL is an excellent license. Debian probably thinks
it's nonfree due to the external deployment or patent-defense
clauses (and maybe even the 'express assent' clause) -- both of which I like (I'm not sure about the express-assent clause). But
that just means I think Debian's test for being free is too
strict. The OSL, unlike almost every other free software license,
works equally well for documents as for software, so you can
license your entire free-software package with one license, or you
can use it for textbooks (what I will use it for).

Clarity and terminology

dmag — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 21:15:15 +0000

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

giraffedata — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 15:33:55 +0000

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

forthy — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 11:35:12 +0000

Have you ever removed the Windows XP-Home registry entry that limits the
functionality 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

Wol — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 07:28:35 +0000

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,
Wol

Clarity and terminology

Wol — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 07:22:59 +0000

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

NOT APPLIED TO RAILS

BrucePerens — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 20:30:40 +0000

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

"vaccinating" or "freedom preserving"

man_ls — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 16:42:23 +0000

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".

Clarity and terminology

giraffedata — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 23:09:09 +0000

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.

The Open Software License, Version 3.0

giraffedata — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 22:48:45 +0000

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.

Clarity and terminology

oak — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 19:32:20 +0000

> 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)...

The Open Software License, Version 3.0

KaiRo — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 19:12:32 +0000

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...

"vaccinating" or "freedom preserving"

bronson — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 18:26:42 +0000

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.

The Open Software License, Version 3.0

bronson — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 18:19:54 +0000

"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.

Clarity and terminology

bronson — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 18:04:18 +0000

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!

The Open Software License, Version 3.0

job — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 09:10:15 +0000

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)

"vaccinating" or "freedom preserving"

ber — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 09:04:50 +0000

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.

The Open Software License, Version 3.0

tsr2 — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 07:30:25 +0000

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?

Blast, it's not /GPL/ v.3!

pengo — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 00:52:59 +0000

You weren't the only one :)

Blast, it's not /GPL/ v.3!

Max.Hyre — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 18:16:50 +0000

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...

The Open Software License, Version 3.0

zooko — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 17:41:34 +0000

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.

The Open Software License, Version 3.0

sanjoy — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:57:56 +0000

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).

Clarity and terminology

arcticwolf — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:31:21 +0000

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

elanthis — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 14:30:28 +0000

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.

The Open Software License, Version 3.0

dw — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 10:39:41 +0000

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.

Clarity and terminology

Ross — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 05:35:42 +0000

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.

The Open Software License, Version 3.0

sanjoy — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 04:01:49 +0000

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.

The Open Software License, Version 3.0

JoeBuck — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 19:47:19 +0000

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).

Open Software License

corbet — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 19:31:34 +0000

Sigh. I knew that, really did. Fixed now. Off for more coffee.

Open Software License

elanthis — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 19:25:56 +0000

It's called the Open Software License, not the Open Source License.