Google Goes After Open Source Licensing Cruft

pacopico writes "Google has secret plans to put out its own open source software license, according to this story in The Register. Apparently, Google's efforts will center around developing a simplified open source license that makes it easier for developers to stay "within the spirit" of the license in addition to the law. Chris DiBona at Google was asked about the plans but won't budge with details yet. Still, The Register claims that Google's efforts could improve the license proliferation issues facing the OSI."

Comments

Ironic

[JoshJ]

So Google's solution to "there are too many open source licenses!" is... to make another one?

Re:Ironic

[maxwell demon]

One license to rule them all
and in the darkness bind them.

Re:Ironic

[Justin205]

No, Google's solution is to make *Google's* license, and use that. And try to make everyone else use it, perhaps.

I wonder how it'll incorporate advertisements (Google's main source of revenue) into it.

Re:Kind of like...

[Tackhead]

> GPLv2?

Of course.

The Google interprets revisions to the GPL as damage and licenses around them. ("That's GOO/Linux to you, Sir!")

Wow!

[Black Parrot]

Chris DiBona at Google was asked about the plans but won't budge with details yet. It's so open they have to keep it secret!!!

There are only two licenses I care about

[DaleGlass]

GPL and BSD.

IMO, those represent very well the two different approaches to the problem. The rest are a needless complication. Besides, their meaning and implications are understood very well, so I don't see what Google is going to achieve by creating their own.

Re:There are only two licenses I care about

[BrainInAJar]

I'll add to that MPL. GPL vs. MPL vs. BSD is "make all code free" vs "keep my code free" vs "do as you wish"

Re:There are only two licenses I care about

[gstein]

That thinking was exactly why I included MPL in the list of licenses on Google Code. It was a mistake though... in practice, nobody uses it (about 2% of projects on Google Code). To further reduce proliferation, I've been thinking about removing it as a choice (and grandfathering existing projects who use it).

Re:There are only two licenses I care about

[BrainInAJar]

That's unfortunate that it's not in more widespread use.

It's a good class of licenses, but The largest problems with the MPL are that everyone creates their own minor variant ( apple's licence, Sun's CDDL, myriads more) and that the GPL gets so much press time (people assume open source = GPL, so that's what they release their code under)

May or may not be happening...

[fsmunoz]

We also discuss Google's super-secret project that may or may not be happening around creating a new open source software licensing model.

Google to Change the World with New Open Source License

* Subhead - We might be making this up

Well, at least they're honest.

Anyway, assuming this is true... I don't see the big difference or importance. In one way everyone is free to choose and create a licence that suits his needs. On the other the creation of yet another licence that means the same than already existing ones isn't really something to be in awe about. If it provides more "legal protection" people will complain it's legalese, if it doesn't then it's no different from dozens of other ones. A "simplified open source license that makes it easier for developers to stay "within the spirit" of the license in addition to the law" doesn't mean anything in concrete terms, and what is worse makes the assumption that current popular free licences somehow make it hard to do the same.

If in the last months so many interpretations were made regarding a licence as simple as the ISC licence I'm not sure any licence in the world is invulnerable to different interpretations. On that note the SFLC has issued a position regarding the GPLv2/GPLv3/BSD licences mixing that have been all the rage.

Re:May or may not be happening...

[einhverfr]

Interestingly, the SFLC link you provide doesn't answer to my main concern about GPL v3/BSDL compatibility.

They state "From the beginnings of their use, however, the permissive licenses have been understood by their licensors and licensees alike to permit the code they cover to be incorporated within larger works covered as a whole by more restrictive terms, including more restrictive FOSS licenses like the GPL as well as, indeed, by proprietary licenses. This understanding represents the uninterrupted, longstanding practice and expectation of the global information technology industry, including both its free and proprietary divisions, with vast commercial reliance on the result. As such, disruption of the established interpretation of the permissive licenses is neither likely nor desirable."

The concern I have with the GPL 3 is not the question of whether the larger work can have additional restrictions added (clearly this is allowed), but rather whether the BSD License allows restrictions to be removed from BSDL components absent copyrighted additions. This is in relation to section 7, paragraph 2, which allows anyone who merely conveys the software to remove additional permissions, not just from the "work as a whole" but additionally from "any part of" the covered work. The BSD-licensed projects I have talked with suggest that excersizing this right would violate the license since one cannot merely declare the BSD license grant to be void in the process of distributing the software.

Re:maybe something modular?

[AuMatar]

Which is why Creative Commons is absolutely fucking useless. "It has a Creative Commons license"- so what? That could mean anything, from public domain to absolutely no rights whatsoever (yes, there is a CC license where distribution is not allowed). Saying something is CC licensed means nothing unless you add in 15 acronyms afterwards, which you then have to figure out what they mean and how they legally interact. The current OSI mess is preferable to that- you know whats meant when someone says GPLv2, BSD, LGPL, etc.

Re:maybe something modular?

[ChrisMounce]

Just because the licenses have confusing names doesn't make them "absolutely f***ing useless."

We are NOT creating a new license

[gstein]

This is just stupid. We are not... repeat NOT... creating a new license.

On Google Code, we are taking a stand AGAINST license proliferation -- you can only use one of eight licenses there. And I've been thinking of dropping it to seven (remove MPL). Creating our own license(s) would go completely against our philosophy.

No. The simple answer is that we like to encourage people to use GPLv3 or Apache for their software, depending upon their philosophy. Dropping back to just those two licenses would be ideal. The FLOSS world would be SO much better if there were just a couple licenses because it would radically simplify the use/combination of software.

Sheesh.

Re:We are NOT creating a new license

[1155]

I'd have to pull my project if you removed the 3 clause bsd.

Re:We are NOT creating a new license

[gstein]

About 9% of the projects on Google Code use the "new" BSD, so we're keeping that. No worries :-)

GPLv2, GPLv3, and Apache -licensed projects make up two-thirds of all projects.

Re:We are NOT creating a new license

[chrisd]

Thanks for posting this Greg! I thought it was some kind of joke when Ashlee emailed me, I mean, how many times do we have to say we're not creating our own licenses, you know?

Chris

Re:We are NOT creating a new license

[1155]

Cool. Honestly, I use it because it doesn't take 3 days to read+interpret the license.

More than that

[Burz]

...those two licenses are models of simplicity compared to most proprietary licenses.

Quite ironic

[einhverfr]

I think that if and when Chris Dibona proposes this on the OSI license-discuss list, he is going to be put in the hotseat perhaps in the same way as Microsoft. The basic issue is that he has been really arguing loudly for the idea that OSI should only approve new licenses when depricating an old one. It seems that license proliferation argumenst are likely to come back against such a proposal.

Re:Quite ironic

[chrisd]

You can bet I would be. Good thing that we're not planning on doing anything this stupid.

Chris DiBona

Re:Quite ironic

[I'm Don Giovanni]

So you aren't going to try to get OSI to certify this? Even after Michael Tiemann's "If it's not OSI, then it's not 'open source'" rant?
http://www.opensource.org/node/163
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/21/1146259

I find that hard to believe.

Re:Google needs a mascot

[creativeHavoc]

Hey, chose the Vancouver Island Marmot! 2 birds with one stone. Google gets a furry mascot, and the marmot gets more awareness in the media. http://www.marmots.org/

The imminent release of 'Google Apps' for Linux

[Burz]

...may have prompted DiBona to field the idea of a Google-inspired license. They may be afraid of the 'viral' nature of the platform they are writing for.

If that's the case, then it points to some far-reaching stuff possibly coming out of their labs. Things that may require kernel modules...

Ob. Strangelove

[Wesley Felter]

"You idiot! The point of the doomsday license is lost if you keep it a secret!"

Re:Google needs a mascot

[Gwala]

A spider.

Re:people assume open source = GPL

[vagabond_gr]

RMS is a hippie Indeed, good for him.

that thinks nobody should be allowed to make non-GPL software at all. There are perfectly good reasons to believe that software (and anything the can be copied in general) should be freely used, and distributed and studied and modified, without the need of any license to enforce that. If the resource is infinite then the full use of it is ethical and it's in the society's best interest. This is what (always IMHO) RMS believes and I fully agree with him. GPL is a good way to achieve this, given then current legal system.

It wasn't until people started not paying attention to him that FOSS outside of BSD took off at all in any real sense Well, it's hard to overemphasize RMS's contribution to free software. But, in any case, RMS is just another person whose opinion you should consider when forming your own. If you don't like hippies, just ignore him.

Re:Kind of like...

[StarfishOne]

GPLv2 Beta?

Fixed that for you. ;p