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which is the ONLY freedom there is. Anything else is a lie.

Please read what's posted at the following link "Why the public domain isn't a license"
http://www.rosenlaw.com/lj16.h...

First, let me say that I agree with you completely. You're not the first person to come up with the idea, I recall that being hashed out a while back and found this site that references it:
http://www.sitepoint.com/open-source-licensing/

*** Update from the bottom of this post ***
It is probably worth reading all of this and clicking the many links. After spending over an hour and a half on this silly quest I have managed to find some suitable tools that will help you (and others) as well as a variety of resources which we could use to easily create our own such tools. It's a good idea and an idea that is long overdue. There are some, it turns out, that have already attempted it but I am thinking a more robust solution would be an excellent addition to the community. I've done "my part" at this point but I'm probably willing to get my hands a little dirtier if need be but I suspect there are people here who have skills I don't and who have skills that aren't as rusty as my own.

Either way, be sure to read this as there are some decent links and there are some actual scripts that people have coded that do accomplish this task. The links are in the list and I've made an effort to describe them to some extent or at least indicate their importance so that you can narrow down which ones you wish to review and which ones you can just safely ignore. I don't think you (and I) are the only folks who are interested in it so the time invested is likely not wasted. Thanks for the thought process which engaged my brain hamsters. I enjoyed the chase.
*** End Update ***

Anyhow... That would be an excellent addition to the web. I've never seen anything of the sort actually done about it though it's been pondered in the past so I meandered off to Google and pulled a couple of links out of my favorites to see what I could come up with. But, be aware, I don't have exactly what you're looking for (or know if it exists as of yet) but I'll add to this post as I search and if I can't find what it is that you're looking for (it seems unlikely and I'm not sure why - it's pretty obviously something that would benefit the community and it doesn't look all that difficult) I can at least provide you with the resources to create the tool you're looking for. Hopefully that helps...

You can kind of do it on your own, manually, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-source_software_licenses

Larry Rose's book 'Open Source Licensing' is available free online, specifically chapter 10 applies:
http://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm

This is not even remotely what you asked for but still interesting and on-topic (and I want to share it):
http://www.tldrlegal.com/compare

You could get SOME of that data here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

This one isn't complete but is simple and easy (and, like the last one, new to me):
http://jan-krueger.net/doc/opensource-licenses.html

In my search I found this, which isn't what you wanted but is a start:
http://creativecommons.org/choose/ (It looks to be pretty basic, and it is, but it is a good start.)

Another one that is new to me but pretty quick and easy to use. Still not what you wanted though:
http://www.croftsoft.com/library/tutorials/opensource/

This one looks a lot like the one from Wikipedia, I've not checked to see if it is a duplicate or not:
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_o

I can point you at Rosen's position, here: http://www.rosenlaw.com/lj19.htm which states that:

-- LGPL and GPL are the same, the distinction is not legally meaningful.

-- linking does not constitute creating a derivative work, the license will not "infect" programs which merely use a given library.

and can add that there are many proprietary applications for Linux using the glibc stack, and I have yet to hear of anyone attempting to enforce the GPL for mere use of a library.

You can't tell if that is patent license without asking a lawyer. And these guys who are lawyers disagree with your argument

http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch05.pdf

University of California's intellectual property rights were actually being licensed by the first BSD license. Almost everyone believes that the redistribution and use clause of the BSD license was intended to include all of the exclusive intellectual property rights the University then owned for something called the "Berkeley Software Distribution." The fact that the BSD license does not expressly list those exclusive rights (e.g., copy, create derivative works, distribute, perform, display, make, use, sell, offer for sale, import) doesn't mean they intended any of those rights to be excluded from the license. The term redistribution means distribution again. This necessarily includes the right to make copies, since one cannot distribute software again without making copies. And since the word modification later in the sentence implies derivative work , I assume that the license allows the copying and distribution of both the original and derivative works. The word redistribution in the BSD license appears to encompass all those copyright rights that must be granted to ensure software freedom. The BSD license passes the filter of the Open Source Principles.

The word use, on the other hand, is not found among the exclusive rights of copyright owners. The use of software can be affected by a patent, because under the law, a patent owner has the exclusive right to make, use, and sell any product in which the patent is embodied. But the University of California made no patent grant in the BSD license. Indeed, later in the license the University specifically used the phrase this software is provided by the copyright holders and contributors , suggesting by its absence that there are no patent holders or that those patent holders are not granting anything in this license.

In the absence of an explicit patent grant, but considering the word use in the license, can we assume that the BSD license impliedly grants enough of whatever patent rights the University of California then owned that a licensee may use the software as it was originally distributed by the University? Most licensees under the BSD assume it does on the theory that otherwise the copyright license would be of no value. What good, they say, is software that can be copied but not used? Such a conclusion is not based on the law of licenses. Indeed, a bare license of copyright need not include a bare license of patent at all. It is only if the BSD is viewed as a contract that we can introduce contract law principles such as reliance or reasonable expectations of the parties. If software is licensed under the BSD without forming a contract between licensor and licensee, the extent of any patent grant is at best ambiguous.

As to whether an implied grant of patent rights extends to versions of the software with modifications, that's an even more complicated question. The BSD license is silent about a patent license for derivative works. So if a licensee improves the original Berkeley Software Distribution in a way that infringes a patent owned by the University of California, there is no easy way of knowing whether an implied BSD patent license includes a patent license for that improvement.

Since courts are likely to construe implied grants of license narrowly, a licensee should consider obtaining separately from the licensor an explicit grant of patent rights that might be needed for modified versions of BSD-licensed software.

Seems like to be safe if you were intending to grant people a copyright license but not a patent license you should make this explicit though.

However, as you noted, all it takes is for one customer to put the source up for download, and you're screwed.

Not if you accompany it with a contract that adds additional restrictions:

Attorneys and courts are familiar with licenses that are contracts and they regularly apply the well-developed law of contracts to handle issues of license interpretation. In the absence of contract law, there is no ready framework for license language interpretation.

Per additional detail in the above document, the Gnu GPL is a 'bare license'. It's not a 'contract', but -- someone with a legal background please chime in here -- I'd think it could be accompanied by one that would provide further restriction over redistribution.

Pretty much. There's the issue of whether a header constitutes a published interface or not, which could have some bearing on questions of whether it can be included with a "#include" outside the terms of the license for the software as a whole, but since reverse engineering a header is a trivial task and it can never be proven that the official header was actually included, this is very nearly a moot point, IMHO.

As you say, it has never been tested in court, to my knowledge. I really sort of wish some company would decide to put it to the test, if only so that the question could be answered more definitively. That said, I do tend to agree with your assessment, as does Lawrence Rosen.

I would sum up the argument like this: linking an application to a library should no more be a violation of the copyright of that library than linking an automobile to an engine should be a violation of the patent on the engine. The latter clearly does not dilute the patent on the engine, nor does the former dilute the copyright on the library.

A nice court case supporting that view is Ticketmaster Corp. v. Tickets.com in which it was determined that hypertext linking is not a violation of copyright of the linked page. That's really remarkably close to the question of source code linking....

Wrongo. Licenses can be revoked by the rights holder because they are *not* contracts, at least in their basic form. Contracts must have an offer, acceptance, and consideration (payment or something similar), and open source licenses lack the latter. This situation is not applicable to non-free software.

Source: "Open Source Licensing" by Lawrence Rosen, Chapter 4, available at http://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm

"A third problem with bare licenses is that they may be revocable by the licensor. Specifically, a license not coupled with an interest may be revoked. The term interest in this context usually means the payment of some royalty or license fee, but there are other more complicated ways to satisfy the interest requirement. For example, a licensee can demonstrate that he or she has paid some consideration - a contract law term not found in copyright or patent law - in order to avoid revocation. Or a licensee may claim that the and she relied on the software licensed under an open source license and now is dependent upon that software, but this contract law concept, called promissory estoppel, is both difficult to prove and unreliable in court tests."

Uhm, the bsd license only requires that a copyright be maintained for source covered by the bsd license

Are you making this up? Have you read the licenses?

BSD licensing makes no requirements for the compiled binary to be freely distributable.

Derivative works must contain the copyright notice. You can argue that the permission notice isn't part of the copyright notice for the 3 clause BSD however the ISC and MIT licenses both explicitly require propagation of the permission text. Here's the relevant text from the BSD license...

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
 
    * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

The MIT license is even more explicit...

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
 
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

The permission is for "this software", not a specific subset of the software - that's viral. What about the ISC license that OpenBSD now use?

Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any
purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

Note that the ISC grants rights for "this software", once again that means the work as a whole and is therefore viral!

But Free Softare is not in any way dependent on copyright law.

Actually, it is. "Copyleft" is just the FSF's way of saying "reciprocity", which is the term a lawyer would use to describe the relationship between the licensor and the licensee under the GPL. That reciprocity is brought about through the protections of copyright law, which defines ownership. If you don't own it, you can't license it.

Lawrence Rosen, who has written several Open Source licenses and served as General Counsel for the OSI (Open Source Initiative) put it this way in his book Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law (free under the Academic Free License):

"The term copyleft, of course, needn't disappear. It still has great rhetorical value. It is a useful word to toss back at those who mistakenly complain that the GPL destroys copyrights; the GPL requires copyright law to create a copyleft bargain."

This license is drafted poorly. Legal writing doesn't require the use of passive voice, run on sentences, and long strings of conditionals. See http://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm for examples of legal writing that doesn't assault the reader.

If you'd like to learn more of the legal details, please look at this:

  http://rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch04.pdf
That's from a book by a lawyer about open source licenses.

There is no historical precedent for what you are describing, "open source style" licensing is a new concept.

The concept of a contract, with exchange of value and mutual obligations, is what our legal system runs one. Not one party making an irrevocable grant to people he doens't even know -- that's a new concept.

It isn't a matter of going back in time. The point is, unless you have a contract with the Copyright holder, he can change the license.

Please see p.56 here: http://rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch04.pdf

That's from a book by a lawyer about open source licenses.

Well, I'm just going by what I learned about contracts -- there has to be consideration, right?

You write "You can't take just "take back" the license at your pleasing; once the user has downloaded the software, he has entered into the license ...", but what is the justification for your statement? And what is "enter into a license?" Don't folks enter into a contract? And for contracts, don't you need "consideration"?

I'd like to think the law works that way, but I know full well that contract law doesn't necessarily work the way I think it should.

Isn't it the case that if I saw I'll give you something (a license), but there's no consideration, that promise is not enforceable. OK, there's the concept of "promissory estoppel", but that's pretty vauge. Consideration is really simple.

Here's a lawyer who agrees with me: page 56.

I'm assuming he knows something, he wrote the book (freely downloadable) Open Source Licensing Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law

If you can, please explain to me how this guy is just wrong. If you can site some case law so I can follow up, that'd be nice too.

Well, I'm just going by what I learned about contracts -- there has to be consideration, right?

You write "You can't take just "take back" the license at your pleasing; once the user has downloaded the software, he has entered into the license ...", but what is the justification for your statement? And what is "enter into a license?" Don't folks enter into a contract? And for contracts, don't you need "consideration"?

I'd like to think the law works that way, but I know full well that contract law doesn't necessarily work the way I think it should.

Isn't it the case that if I saw I'll give you something (a license), but there's no consideration, that promise is not enforceable. OK, there's the concept of "promissory estoppel", but that's pretty vauge. Consideration is really simple.

Here's a lawyer who agrees with me: page 56.

I'm assuming he knows something, he wrote the book (freely downloadable) Open Source Licensing Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law

If you can, please explain to me how this guy is just wrong. If you can site some case law so I can follow up, that'd be nice too.

For those wishing to understand the differences between open source licenses, I recommend the book "Open Source Licensing" by lawyer Lawrence Rosen (it is also available online at http://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm). There is also an interesting discussion on this topic summarized here http://wiki.na-mic.org/Wiki/index.php/NAMIC_Wiki:C ommunity_Licensing.

> You can sell access to a live human being for technical support.

This is another line of business. Would you tell a pipe manufacturer that they must give away their pipes and make money only as plumbers?

> You can sell copies of a copyright-restricted user manual.

Again, this is completely unrelated. You can sell manuals on any commercial software too, as the numerous "Office for Dummies" books demonstrate. In this instance you are making money from your writing skill, selling an unrelated (and copyright restricted, too! Oh, the horror! How can you tolerate that?) product, not your programming skill.

> You can embed a trademark into most of the screens

No you can't. This would be a violation of the GPL because you are placing restrictions on the distribution of your derivative work.

> replacing "linking" with "mere aggregation" as the GPL FAQ explains.

The policy that linking creates a derivative work is an FSF opinion. It will not stand up in court because linking is easily demonstrated to be "fair use" of the original work. See a lawyer's argument at http://www.rosenlaw.com/html/GPL.PDF.

> There exist ways to fund software development

And this is indeed the problem. What you are suggesting is to lose money on the software (because development costs money) but make up the balance on the service side. While this is a legitimate business strategy, it is not to be thought as normal. Software has value, and nobody has a right to say otherwise except its author.

His Trademark law article and his explanation of fair use seem particularly useful.

His Trademark law article and his explanation of fair use seem particularly useful.

Lawrence Rosen's article regarding the dangers of Microsoft's shared source license are in this article: License FUD http://www.rosenlaw.com/lj8.htm This article explains why Microsoft's shared source licenses are dangerous.

Getting the code is admittedly more complicated than it needs to be (and we're working on that), but hyperbole like the parent post should not be modded up as "Informative". The steps are:

1. Sign up for the site, filling in a form with proposed user name, real name, company name, and email.
2. Receive confirmation URL, and visit included URL
3. Agree to site terms of use
4. Agree to RPSL (an OSI certified license)
5. Get source code via CVS/SSH

Why are we being hardasses about making sure that people agree to licenses? It's a combination of the way the legal system works, and our general conservativeness that stems from being a publicly traded company.

There are good reasons to ensure that "manifestation of assent" occurs, even for open source. I'll defer to Larry Rosen's excellent paper on the topic. Larry, as you may know, is the General Counsel for the Open Source Initiative, and while his opinion is only an opinion, it's a very well informed one.

As for the functionality, it's more than just "shells". There's complete software there, and it's the foundation of our commercial products. Additionally, the combination of Ogg Vorbis, SMIL 2.0, JPEG, GIF, and PNG is very powerful, and *all open source*. No RealAudio/RealVideo necessary, and the app is pretty unique. For an example which plays in the Helix Player (and versions of RealPlayer/RealOne Player with the Ogg Vorbis codec installed), check out the following link:

http://rtsp.org/2003/demos/oggsmil/oggdemo.smil

Once one starts looking at SMIL (especially SMIL 2.0), you begin to realize that a system that can support it does a lot.

Rob Lanphier
Helix Community Coordinator

A ''derivative work'' is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a ''derivative work''.

Clearly, Larry Rosen or Alan Greenspan should be invited to participate, in order to get some kind of balanced perspective.

Not that I'm holding my breath for anything other than economic looting, from the Bush admistration.

Not true. If you look at GPLed code, and then write something similar, you can be accused of having created a derivative work -- in which case you will lose the rights to your work. (Worse yet, you'll be forced to license it under the GPL, which could destroy your livelihood and/or your business.)

A lawyer who in fact works for the Open Source Initiative has written an essay explaining the dangers of perusing source code which is licensed in a way that is hostile to your interests. (In his case, he's looking at Microsoft's "shared source" license.) See

http://www.rosenlaw.com/html/GL8.pdf

--Brett Glass

In this essay, where he condemns Microsoft's "Shared Source" initiative, he points out (correctly!) that if you so much as look at Microsoft source code, anything similar that you write later could be declared to be a derivative work. (He uses, as an example, the George Harrison "My Sweet Lord" case, in which Harrison was convicted of "unconscious" copyright infringement because he had once heard a song with a similar melody.)

However, in the essay cited in this Slashdot article, Rosen doesn't warn of this danger. What's more, he does not warn in either essay that it's just as much a danger when one looks at GPLed code as when one looks at Microsoft code.

This is an issue which both Rosen and the FSF have consistently ducked. If you look at GPLed source, and later write something similar, you could potentially be sued for infringement and required to release your work under the GPL -- forfeiting any payment you might have been able to get for licensing it. (The GPL requires that you license derivative works "at no cost.")

In short, in the essay mentioned in this Slashdot item, Rosen both omits vital information and fails to warn of a serious danger. Worse still, he shows inappropriate bias: he points out that danger in the case of Microsoft's "shared source," but not in the case of the GPL. This brings his objectivity and reliability as a source into question. His advice to software authors on the subject of copyrights and derivative works should be factual and based on concrete principles. It shouldn't be biased by who -- the FSF or Microsoft -- happens to own the software.

• Bruce Perens, Free Software Evangelist.
• Larry Rosen, Attorney, Executive Director: Open Source Initiative
• Eben Moglen, General Counsel, Free Software Foundation.

• We don't get everything we want, but we've done pretty well.

  Bruce