Re: MTL license

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

"Any disputes arising out of this Agreement or LICENSEE'S use of the
software at any time shall be resolved by the courts of the state of
Indiana. LICENSEE hereby consents to the jurisdiction of the Indiana
courts and waives the right to challenge the jurisdiction thereof in any
dispute arising out of this Agreement or Licensee's use of the
software."

This is choice of venue; it means that, if the licensor wants, he can
force me to trek out to Indiana at whim to defend myself in court,
overriding the normal legal mechanisms for choosing a suitable venue.
I believe most of d-legal considers this to be non-free; I agree.

Examining a wdiff from the Artistic License:

> "Standard Version" refers to such a Package if it has not been modified,
> or has been modified in accordance with the wishes of the Copyright [-Holder.-]
> {+Holder as specified below.+}

Wait.  My reading of the original definition excluded modified works;
this one seems to include them.  (I suppose that the original "modified
in accordance with the wishes of the Copyright Holder" could be argued
to include modifications made under the terms of this license, but that
isn't consistent with the way the phrase is used.)

This is confusing, since it seems to make all of the "differs from the
Standard Version", etc. stuff a complete no-op, which I can't imagine
was intended.

> "c) rename any non-standard [-executables-] {+types and functions+} so
> the names do not conflict with [-standard executables,-] {+Standard
> Version,+} which must also be provided, and provide a separate [-manual
> page-] {+documentation+} for each non-standard [-executable-] {+type of
> function+} that clearly documents how it differs from the Standard Version."

Requiring that I change function names is completely non-free; this is
essentially says that a forked library must be both source and binary
incompatible.

I believe the resulting section 3 is non-free; none of the options are
acceptable.  (Some people will argue that 3a is free, but I don't think
it is.)


The entire "4. You may distribute the programs of this Package in object
code or executable form, provided that you do at least ONE of the following:
..." section was removed.  It seems like nothing in this license grants
permission to distribute binaries (modified or not).  The "copying fee
for any distribution of this Package" bit seems to grant permission to
distribute modified source, but the supplied definition of "Package"[1]
does not include binaries.

I believe this license is non-free in multiple ways, and is another
unfortunate example of "license NIH".  There will be some people who
don't agree with the non-freeness of some of the above, but I think the
lack of permission to distribute binaries is clear-cut, unless it exists
and I'm not seeing it.


[1]
> "Package" refers to the collection of files distributed by the Copyright
> Holder, and derivatives of that collection of files created through textual
> modification.'

-- 
Glenn Maynard