Re: Choosing a License: GNU APL? AFL 3.0?
On Dec 30, 2007 5:51 PM, Sean B. Palmer <sean@miscoranda.com> wrote:
> A = Allows short statement of application
> B = Preserves copyright statements and notices
> C = Allows distribution without full license text
> D = License is or may be fixed to exclude later versions
And here's the table augmented with what the OSI categorises as
"Other/Miscellaneous licenses" in its proliferation report:
| A | B | C | D |
----------------------------+---+---+---+---+
Apache License 2.0 | N | Y | N | Y |
Modified BSD | Y | N | N | Y |
GNU GPL 2 | ? | ? | N | Y |
GNU LGPL 2.1 | ? | ? | N | N |
MIT | Y | N | N | Y |
Mozilla Public License 1.1 | N | Y | N | N |
CDDL 1.0 | Y | Y | N | Y |
Common Public License 1.0 | Y | Y | N | N |
----------------------------+---+---+---+---+
Adaptive Public License 1.0 | N | Y | N | N |
The Artistic License | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Artistic License 2.0 | Y | N | Y | ? |
Open Software License 3.0 | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Q Public License 1.0 | Y | Y | N | Y |
zlib/libpng License | Y | N | ? | Y |
----------------------------+---+---+---+---+
(This table may not be accurate. This is not legal advice.)
The problem with The Artistic License is that, as Wikipedia says:
'Whether or not the original Artistic License is a free software
license is largely undecided. It was criticised by the Free Software
Foundation as being "too vague; some passages are too clever for their
own good, and their meaning is not clear."'
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_License
The problem with the OSL 3.0 is that it's the AFL 3.0's copyleft
sister, so DFSG problems with the AFL presumably affect the OSL 3.0
too, and it's not a permissive license. (It might be argued that no
license passing column B is a permissive license, but I think you
could make this argument for any license failing column C too, and yet
Modified BSD and MIT pass column C.)
--
Sean B. Palmer, http://inamidst.com/sbp/
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