New license request: romic-exception [was: agpl-3.0-linking-exception] [SPDX-Online-Tools]

[capfei]

1. License Name: AGPL-3.0 Linking Exception 2. Short identifier: agpl-3.0-linking-exception 3. License Author or steward: Unknown 4. Comments: I came across this linking exception for AGPL 3.0. It reads similar to the GPL 3.0 linking exception and seems used enough for inclusion consideration. 5. License Request Url: http://tools.spdx.org/app/license_requests/373 6. URL(s): https://web.archive.org/web/20210124015834/http://mo.morsi.org/blog/2009/08/13/lesser_affero_gplv3/ 7. OSI Status: Approved 8. Example Projects: https://github.com/moll/node-mitm/blob/bbf24b8bd7596dc6e091e625363161ce91984fc7/LICENSE#L8-L11, https://github.com/zenbones/SmallMind/blob/3c62b5995fe7f27c453f140ff9b60560a0893f2a/COPYRIGHT#L25-L30, https://github.com/savearray2/py.js/blob/b781273c08c8afa89f4954de4ecf42ec01429bae/README.md#license, https://github.com/CubeArtisan/cubeartisan/blob/2c6ab53455237b88a3ea07be02a838a135c4ab79/LICENSE.LESSER#L10-L15

[karsten-klein]

{metæffekt} Universe canonical name: Linking Exception (AGPL) short name: Linking-Exception-AGPL category: AGPL Linking Exception ScanCode reference id: linking-exception-agpl-3.0

Comment +1 as general AGPL linking exception.

[richardfontana]

My only concern here is the name/id. Surely there are going to be other, different AGPL linking exceptions, and this one (which I have the dubious distinction of having authored many years ago) isn't particularly worth elevating as a good example of an AGPL linking exception. 😄

[jlovejoy]

@richardfontana - sounds like you are in favor of adding, but would like a different name and id. Do you have something in mind?

I am also +1 to add this

[capfei]

Maybe LAPGL or lesser-agpl-3.0-exception?

[richardfontana]

That's probably not ideal either because there have been perennial calls to create or ask the FSF to create/bless a "Lesser AGPL" by that name.

[capfei]

There are a couple of exceptions that use "generic" in the name. Would going that route be preferrable?

• agpl-3.0-exception
• agpl-3.0-generic-exception
• agpl-3.0-generic-linking-exception

[richardfontana]

The concern I have is basically that there could be a number of different AGPL-specific linking exceptions. I'd personally be inclined to use something that references Mo Morsi (if he was indeed the first to use this exception, as I believe is the case) or the project he originally used this exception with, but I couldn't figure out the latter. Like: AGPL-3.0-or-later WITH Morsi-exception

[capfei]

The earliest I can find is August 2009, https://sourceforge.net/p/romic/code/ci/master/tree/. An archive of his old projects site lists another project, that has a similarly named linking exception, Manic, but I cannot find a copy anywhere to verify the text.

I will spend another day looking around to see if I can find any older uses of this exception. If I can't, then I am fine with updating this to Morsi-exception since it seems like he used it, presumably, on at least two projects.

[richardfontana]

Romic, that rings a bell. Wow, that was so long ago he was using Sourceforge :) So if it were me, I might use "romic-exception" but I tend to like quirky names like that. I hadn't realized or didn't remember that he'd tried to publicize the exception as the "Lesser AGPL". But that was a concept that was in the air at the time and I might have somehow suggested it to him.

[capfei]

I didn't find anything older so I updated my PR to Romic Exception as the title and romic-exception as the file name. I also added the link to the sourceforge project.

Thank you for all of the feedback and suggestions!

[github-actions[bot]]

This new license/exception request has been accepted and the information for the license/exception has been merged to the repository. Thank you to everyone who has participated! The license/exception will be published at https://spdx.org/licenses/ as part of the next SPDX License List release, which is expected to be in three months' time or sooner. In the interim, the new license will appear on the license list preview site at https://spdx.github.io/license-list-data/. This is an automated message.