kemitchell / api-copyleft-license

an open source license that's copyleft for changes, additions, and wrappers, but permissive for applications

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Require contribution on permissive terms #3

Closed kemitchell closed 4 years ago

kemitchell commented 5 years ago

Criterion three of the Open Source Definition reads:

The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

Since the license itself is open source, by definition, criterion three allows work within the sweep of copyleft to be open source. An open source copyleft license can't require "derived works" to be closed, though it can allow it. But as written, criterion three also prevents open source copyleft licenses from requiring "derived works" to be permissive open source. If the license requires distributing "derived works" under permissive terms , it thereby excludes distributing under the same terms, which are copyleft terms.

kemitchell commented 5 years ago

16 would require a redo of this PR.

bhilburn commented 5 years ago

Hm, it's entirely possible that I'm misunderstanding this bug report, but I don't think this is an issue. In fact, I think the deletion in this PR's changeset would actually create the issue this bug report describes, if merged.

The three allowable license terms for contributions are (a) a permissive license, (b) a license similar to this one, and (c) this license.

Per num.3:

The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

Hence, as I read this license, it clearly allows modifications & derived works to be distributed under this license, and thus is in compliance with that requirement.

Am I misunderstanding?

kemitchell commented 5 years ago

@bhilburn, you've got it right.

I think many users of this license would prefer to require permissive licensing, and prohibit licensing on the same copyleft terms. The language in the Open Source Definition prohibiting that approach might have been sloppily written. But as it stands, it's hard to argue that a copyleft license that requires derived works to be permissive is "Open Source" under the Definition.

bhilburn commented 5 years ago

Agreed. As I read OSD, it allows derived works to be permissive, but cannot require it.

Did you open this bug report simply to explain that reasoning, then? It's presence & changeset confused me, hah :)

kemitchell commented 5 years ago

Sorry, @bhilburn! I opened this pull request to show the change that would make the license work as I think folks would prefer, with a comment explaining why I didn't make it that way.

Frankly, I strongly suspect that the particular wording of OSD 3 was unintentional, as so much of OSD was. But I'm not particularly motivated to make that argument at the moment.