Ideas for an indigenous oss license

[arecvlohe]

I want to propose some ideas for what an indigenous oss license could be, one that protects indigenous IP while also adhering to indigenous practices of ownership and responsibility of the technology to future Native technologists interested in adding to or tweaking the technology for their use case.

Declare who conferred onto you the ability to read/write/update/delete the technology

As indigenous peoples, we acknowledge, as well as honor, from where our teachings come from, the same can be done for technology. It may be that the work is taken at the request of a particular community, as opposed to a repo author, or it may be that the work is original and so doesn't have maybe an acknowledgment to any entity in particular. So a clause to declare such a reference is the responsibility of the author.

Declare who you want to confer read/write/update/delete of the technology onto

As much as we want to acknowledge where the technology came from, we also want to declare how we intend to pass the technology onto. It may be a specific person, or organizational entity, or community, or nobody at all. Again, it is up to the author to decide. However, if there is someone who can obtain particular rights themselves to carry the work onward, then we develop a kind of lineage, or genealogy or sorts, that demonstrates the historical arc of the technology and how it came to be in the hands of the current user and what rights they have to read/write/update/delete parts of the technology. This takes us to our next point.

Commercial vs Non-commercial

This is already a big topic and throwing in commercial law just continues to add more to it. But it is important to declare how the technology can be used and within what contexts it can be used, whether for commerce or not. Some things may be fine in the commercial space while others are not. Again, it will be critical for the author to make a decision on this.

Create a specification for the license

It's one thing to have a readme license, it's quite another to have a license specification, maybe in JSON format, that outlines the way in which these licenses are written. Given a specification, it opens the door to opportunities to creating trees demonstrating the way in which the technology has been adopted and passed down or how the technology has become an artifact for future uses, or make it more easily queryable through an API. Maybe the license requires a blockchain id that shows how the contract for the usage of the information was solidified in the blockchain ledger or an IPFS URL that directs to an HTML document or PDF image that shows signatures of the license agreement. As long as the specification version is declared then it makes it much easier for data about the software to be tracked and queried and from there more technology can be created around the license for different purposes.

Ultimate Goal

The ultimate goal is to create a license that serves indigenous peoples and that comes from an indigenous perspective. More throwing around of ideas is needed but I am curious to hear ideas from others in the community that are also thinking about these ideas.

[sbutler-gh]

This was very perspective-broadening for me on the matter:

https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/01/12/ml5js-Takes-a-Stand.html

An open-source tool, which has their Code of Conduct/values bounded to their license (and vice versa.)

If you violate the Code of Conduct/values, then your license is revoked. (A committee will be responsible for upholding the Code of Conduct and addressing possible violations.)

The author of that piece, Kyle Mitchell, has done a lot of writing and work around licensing innovation — if it interests. The general direction seems to be, feel empowered to consider your unique context, and use licensing as a tool to support/advance your vision — however makes sense for your context.

[arecvlohe]

One of the things I struggle with is ownership when it comes to licensing. For example, how can the University of Nebraska Press, have copyright over the Muscogee Language Dictionary? What does copyright mean? Why wasn't the community/Nation more involved with licensing? I think the way things work in those instances is a company takes over ownership in the sense that it enforces the copyright and the individual person that worked on the book doesn't ever see that enforcements, doesn't care, or doesn't understand.

When it comes to "ownership" of Native works, or languages, or cultural practices, it's still up to the individuals to determine how something should be shared, because, at the end of the day, you're not going to be able to force an individual to do anything, but you can provide them a framework, whether a license or an agreement, to implement instead of using whatever the status quo at the time is. I think in the case of the Muscogee Language Dictionary, I don't think the Muscogee person, Margaret Mauldin, working on the book understood what copyright meant or what its future usage would entail. It's not ignorance in this case, but I think companies like the University of Nebraska Press to not divulge the legal bindings of copyright to a Native person. But I do think that is our duty.

[SolarDesalination]

Is the goal of the IOSS license to ensure that works developed under an IOSS license are always for their communities? Or is it to ensure that there is freedom of their works for indigenous communities to do what they would like with their work? Arguably a copyleft GPL style license would achieve this goal moreso than an MIT/BSD style license.

[arecvlohe]

Is the goal of the IOSS license to ensure that works developed under an IOSS license are always for their communities? Or is it to ensure that there is freedom of their works for indigenous communities to do what they would like with their work?

It could be one or the other or both. Depends on the situation. I agree a copyleft GPL style license makes sense for this, some other details I am still hazy on