Hello,
I would like to ask about the YAML specification license. I know it states, "This document may be freely copied, provided it is not modified."
I want to start a discussion about this. This
license has several issues:
What does "copied" mean? Copied publicly, like including it in the documentation of a YAML implementation or redistributing the YAML specification on a website? Or does it only refer to private copies?
"Provided it is not modified" is a VERY restrictive and problematic condition. Why?May I (under this license, not under fair use or something) cite this specification (provided that "copied" means I can make public copies) or only make full specification copies?
Contributing to YAML. With this restriction, nobody can legally send you pull requests. I think I don't have to explain why this is not a good thing.
New versions of YAML. When one copyright owner restricts modification, the next version of the YAML specification must be approved for redistribution by ANY previous contributor. This is impractical.
Open source projects. This restriction is not popular in Free and Open Source Projects nor approved by OSI and FSF for use in this kind of project.
Use of reference parsers. Reference parsers are based on this specification DIRECTLY, which means their use is restricted by this license. So, any project that derives from reference parsers is illegal.
What do I propose instead? A CC-BY license or a liberal code license like MIT.
If you want to restrict the use of this specification, there is CC-BY-SA, but it is copyleft, so any project that uses reference parsers must be used under this license (which is not designed for software), so I don't recommend it.
Let me know what you think about this. I hope the discussion will start even if the license won't be changed.
Hello, I would like to ask about the YAML specification license. I know it states, "This document may be freely copied, provided it is not modified." I want to start a discussion about this. This
license has several issues:
What do I propose instead? A CC-BY license or a liberal code license like MIT.
If you want to restrict the use of this specification, there is CC-BY-SA, but it is copyleft, so any project that uses reference parsers must be used under this license (which is not designed for software), so I don't recommend it.
Let me know what you think about this. I hope the discussion will start even if the license won't be changed.