Re: APSL 2.0

[Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>]

Mark Rafn <dagon@dagon.net> writes:
> On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, Jeremy Hankins wrote:

>> In the case of the DPSL that's not obvious, since they seem to want to
>> include restrictions on performance.
>
> This is interesting, and AFAIK the first license Debian has
> considered which makes such a claim (that allowing someone to send
> input to and recieve output from a program is public performance).

That isn't precisely the claim they're making.  In fact, I don't think
they explicitly make any claim that such-and-such activity is public
performance.  What they do say:

     2.2 Modified Code. You may modify Covered Code and use,
     reproduce, display, perform, internally distribute within Your
     organization, and Externally Deploy Your Modifications and
     Covered Code, for commercial or non-commercial purposes, provided
     that in each instance You also meet all of these conditions:

And then condition (c) includes the requirement that source be
available.  So at no point (unless I missed it -- always possible) do
they claim that external deployment (or even providing a service) is
performance.  The way I interpret that they feel they can argue that
it is in court.

Of course, they also permit "use" on those condition as well, so I may
be misunderstanding their intention entirely.  Maybe they think they
can get away with restricting use outside of the scope of copyright
law in the license.  Maybe they even can, I certainly don't know.

>> Certainly at one point the argument against use restrictions was made,
>> but it was because in order to enforce it you'd need something like a
>> clickwrap rather than simply a license.
>
> I read it in reverse.  One of the main reasons for a click-through is to 
> limit use (as opposed to copying), and since this can never be free, 
> there's no reason to have a click-through on free software.

Well, either way, it doesn't argue for use restrictions necessarily
being non-free in this case.

As I understand the argument to date, that seems to be the crucial
issue needed to decide whether the APSL is simply non-free and beyond
hope of being otherwise, or whether a few clarifications on the scope
of what qualifies as providing a service would suffice to make it
free.  Does anyone disagree with that summary?


Hrm.  On second look, there may be a few other objectionable bits to
the APSL.  Section 6 says, speaking of offering support and/or
indemnity:

    You must obtain the recipient's agreement that any such Additional
    Terms are offered by You alone, and You hereby agree to indemnify,
    defend and hold Apple and every Contributor harmless for any
    liability incurred by or claims asserted against Apple or such
    Contributor by reason of any such Additional Terms.

Does that mean that if your customer decides for whatever reason to
sue Apple over the code, you have to defend them?

And then section 11 Apple also asserts that they can take your
modifications and relicense them however they like.  Which I think
makes it non-free (as you're required to compensate Apple with an
open-ended license in return for the right to modify), but IIRC others
here have disagreed with me on that.  At the least it's really, really
slimy.

-- 
Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>
PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333  9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03