Improving License Pages
Improving License Pages
We are trying to collect information about our licenses so that we can improve the license page information and make them more useful for visitors.
A sample page might look like this once the information is added; alternately?
For more details of what this is about, see this thread projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/2013-March/000925.html and http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/2013-November/001336.html
Research tip! Many of the old discussions may be archived at dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.licenses.open-source.general instead of the newer projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/
Superceded licenses
Retired or superseded. Full 
list: http://opensource.org/licenses/do-not-use
- Lucent (Plan 9) draft, pre-1.0.
- OSL 1.0 draft. Addition of external deployment clause.
- AFL 1.1 removes sublicensable. No rationale given.
- AFL 2.1/OSL - diff adds patent restrictions, given rationale
- ECL-1.0 initial submission
- OSL 1.1 Use of the Original Work was defined as external deployment. Right to Use is conditioned by the license. Documentation to access was very broad. Insertion of "must make a reasonable effort to obtain the express and volitional assent". Request for approval of AFL1.2 and OSL 1.1.
- AFL 1.2 patent and GPL compatibility questions. AFL and GPL compatibility thread.
- OSL 2.0 Submission. Discussion on perpetual in licenses. OSL 2.0 and derivative works.
- RPSL 1.0 very broad derivative works assumed scope.
- CeCILL, first version (not approved). Submission. Concerns on source distribution and patents clause.
- Reciprocical Public License (RPL) - Version 1.1. Requires contact with licensor. Comments on asymmetry.
- Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL) - Deprecated by steward.
- MPL 1.1 - Questions on patent grant.
- MPL 2.0 Alpha 3 - Mozilla Public License 2 Alpha 3; request for early review prior to formal submission for approval.
- MPL 2.0 Beta - MPL Beta 2 released- please continue informal review.
- MPL 2.0 RC1 - Request for approval.
- EUPL - discussion.
- NASA 1.1 - Concerns on registration request. Revision.
- CUA - Pre-approval discussion.
- MySQL FLOSS Exception draft - comments.
- Educational Community License (ECL) - Request for approval.
- Artistic - Question on distribution costs vs licensing costs.
- L/GPLv3 - Compatibility, including with v2. Issues on section 7 understanding.
- Frameworx - Concerns on clause 3b.
- Artistic 1.0 - Remove (entirely) the Artistic License 1.0?.
OSL 3.0 - Informing licensees of their rights
Not approved submissions (in progress drafts, abandoned process, rejected, withdrawn)
Moved to Discussions on not approved licenses page.
(Several) License Committee Reports
Simple, random list of old license committee reports or its precedessor. Please note: these were not "mined" to update the other license information list(s). Pre- and including 2005.
Questions from comments and mail archives
A previous iteration of this page involved cleaning out old comments from licenses. This preserves some comments that should be later transformed into FAQs or otherwise handled, and adds questions of interest from mailing list archives.
Questions Luis Has Not Yet Reviewed
From the mailing list archive
Was this submission of Zope 2.1 answered or approved? The version listed on OSI site is 2.0. The difference is trivial, it makes the text into a template for other copyright holders.
Was this request answered? The license listed is wxWindows. The difference is license name change to wxWidgets.
Was this W3C update answered? The W3C license listed is still the former version. Note: trivial changes, but also removal of "permission to use".
License compatibility matrix, http://www.mail-archive.com/license-discuss@opensource.org/msg07684.html
Python License 2.1 - FOR APPROVAL: The Python Software Foundation License (PSF License). Current version on OSI site is 2.0.
Python licenses: an informational thread on the current three licenses governing the code The Python licensing situation.
Other kind of questions (that the FAQ should address with its copyleft notes)
>The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. Then why does Wikipedia state (unreferenced) this license is NOT copyleft? Does Wikipedia need fixing? Is there a reliable source about this?
If I obtain code under the MIT license, then make changes to it. Can I sub-license it under my own terms? Or do I have to still include their original MIT license with my software. Basically I'm creating software that contains MIT licensed code, but I want to sell it with my own sub-license for the end users so they can't redistribute it for free.
We get this question a lot. Maybe this FAQ item should be expanded to address it?
Questions Luis Has Reviewed But Not Yet Taken Action On
Note: in above cases, I find interesting the existence of the questions. 'Reciprocical', 'permissive', and sub-categories, may be of potential interest for pages with license categories, descriptions, basic differentiation, which would serve the purpose to ease choice of license. [Yes, I think this, or something like it, is on our radar. Good to hear our suspicions confirmed, though! –Luis]
Questions Luis Has Reviewed And Taken Action On
We´re searching for an easy-to-understand overview of OSL and GPL - with the main differences, advantages and disadvantages of each. Does anyone know such a document? There are some new software-tools published under OSL and nobody knows what this really mean.
(I think the question, in the form it's asked, is too much to address. And the license explanation is (currently) linked, that should help. So I'd suggest removal for this too.)(I agree and have hidden it. That said, we should consider adding links to "canonical" license explanations to every license. See forthcoming email to license-discuss. –Luis)
The original ISC license said "and distribute." My understanding is that this addition was requested by rms for approval by the FSF, (I believe the issue was related to Pine, and the interpretation UW used). OpenBSD does not use and/or, but instead uses the ISC license before this was modified. I think it should be clarified that the OpenBSD usage is a valid variation of the ISC License.
I'd bring it to your attention, because if there is indeed an issue here, then I think it would be worth to clarify valid variations. (Good find. Email sent to the mailing list about this. –Luis)
May I enquire as to what specific forms are permissable to meet the "…The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software…" requirement? For example, does the notice need to appear within an application's user interface somewhere? If so, does it matter where? If not, how specifically does it need to be incorporated? Embedded within any file? Only a separate file? What about a a phone app, where this would be impractical? What about a hardware product where the code is compiled into firmware and there is no practical or desirable way of displaying the notice? Thanks in advance!
Note: the question how to apply a license isn't unique. (And is addressed in our FAQ, fwiw. -Karl) (Agreed that it is already in the FAQ, so have hidden. But if someone wants to suggest enhancement to the existing FAQ question based on this reading- go for it! -Luis)