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Re: custom license (package: bwctl)



On Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:56:47 -0800 (PST) Walter Landry wrote:

> "Clark C. Evans" <cce@clarkevans.com> wrote:
> > Raoul,
> > 
> > This looks like a non-symmetric copyleft-like attempt:
> > 
> >> then you thereby grant Internet2, its contributors, and its members
> > 
> > for that reason, I don't think it's free
> 
> I am not so sure.  It is not required to give them back the changes.
> It is just the default.  It seems like, if you modify a file, you
> could add a copyright notice like
> 
>   Modifications Copyright (c) 2012, J. Random
>     see license.mit for terms
> 
> then the modifications would be under the MIT license. 

Why? Just because the license states "without contemporaneously
requiring end users to enter into a separate written license agreement
for such enhancements"?

I am under the impression that the actual possibility of publicly
distributing enhancements under the Expat/MIT license will depend on how
"requiring end users to enter into a separate written license
agreement" is interpreted.
Perhaps it could be interpreted as "forcing end users to sign an
agreement written on dead-tree paper". If this is the case, then
I *don't* think that just attaching a copyright notice for enhancements
with the Expat/MIT permission notice would qualify as "requiring end
users to enter into a separate written license agreement"...


In summary, I don't like this bwctl license at all.
It smells non-free, at least one clause looks like a lawyer-bomb, and
it seeks to create a significantly asymmetrical relation between
copyright holders and recipients...

I would recommend trying to persuade upstream to switch to a well-known
and widely-used Free Software license, such as the 3-clause BSD
license: http://www.debian.org/misc/bsd.license


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