Re: Consensus about the Academic Free License ("AFL") v3.0

[Walter Landry <wlandry@caltech.edu>]

Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> wrote:
> Here are a few comments about the license.
> 
>  - point 3) is poorly worded, but assuming it is well-intented, it is Free.

I would strongly disagree here.  Requiring documentation of any sort
in addition to the source code is a big step.  This is not a minor
thing.

>  - The "Attribution Notice" sounds a bit like an invariant section, but it is also
>    very similar to the NOTICE file from the Apache License, which is Free.

It is somewhat different.  The Apache license only requires you to
preserve attribution notices from the NOTICE file.  AFL requires
preserving

  any descriptive text identified therein as an "Attribution Notice."

There is no requirement that the text actually be an attribution
notice.  So maybe it is OK as long as there are only attributions in
the "Attribution Notice".

Cheers,
Walter Landry