Re: Freeness of this license
Bastien ROUCARIES <roucaries.bastien@gmail.com> writes:
> Hi, I am going to package fastcap and fasthenry.
Thank you for giving attention to the important issue of the work's
license.
> *********************
> Copyright (C) 2003 by the Board of Trustees of Massachusetts Institute of
> Technology, hereafter designated as the Copyright Owners.
The inappropriate language – “copyright owners” is an oxymoron, since
copyright is not property – is objectionable, but does not in itself
affect the freedom of the work.
> License to use, copy, modify, sell and/or distribute this software and
> its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without royalty,
> subject to the following terms and conditions:
[…]
I agree that the text covered by that elision is a standard 3-clause
BSD-style license.
> LICENSEE shall indemnify, hold harmless and defend the Copyright
> Owners and their trustees, officers, employees, students and agents
> against any and all claims arising out of the exercise of any rights
> under this Agreement, including, without limiting the generality of
> the foregoing, against any damages, losses or liabilities whatsoever
> with respect to death or injury to person or damage to property
> arising from or out of the possession, use, or operation of Software
> or Licensed Program(s) by LICENSEE or its customers.
This is an imposition of boundless and unknowable costs on the licensee,
based on the action of other parties.
It goes far beyond the (already included) warranty disclaimer, and
reaches into the future life of the licensee to oblige legal defense of
the copyright holder.
It makes the work non-free, in my opinion.
If the paragraph were dropped, the disclaimer of warranty earlier would
still stand, which should be sufficient. It would also make the license
almost identical to a 3-clause BSD license, so I would just encourage
the copyright holder to reduce license proliferation by issuing a
standard text instead of their own variant.
--
\ “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not |
`\ entitled to their own facts.” —US Senator Pat Moynihan |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
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