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Novell License Draft 1.0 Submitted for Review
Bruce Perens writes "Novell has submitted its Open Source license for review. You can find it, and a few details about license-review, here. "
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Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
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Bruce
Bruce Perens.
2. Not every attorney agrees with yours on that issue.
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Bruce
Bruce Perens.
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Bruce
Bruce Perens.
That's not how they do it, though. They ship with the GPL, and the authors even frequently think that it's GPL software. But it's not, and this is done without changing a word of the GPL--the actions override the text.
This usually happens because the GPL was a poor choice for the project, and that the developers didn't fully understand the consequences of the viral nature of the license. That is, it usually happens in projects that can't possibly be GPL'd.
The solution is not editing the text, but another file that explains what the text means in light of what really happened. Alternatively, a LICENSE file could state that the terms in the file in the directory GPL apply save as follows. Either way, the copyright isn't violated.
hawk, esq.
I don't see that this restricts what you can do with your own work at all.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
When I contribute code, I do it to increase the problem space covered by free software. Not only am I not interested in helping proprietary software developers, I would object to their incorporating my code without negociating a commercial license. My code is not a gift to them, it's something I share with the free software community.
Regarding Java, if the copyright holder doesn't want to prosecute your use of a non-free run-time, that is the copyright holder's choice. See also the GPL provisions for code that is a standard component of your system, which may apply to the Java run-time.
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Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I've got to take comments on these issues back to Novell. Please think them through, folks.
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Bruce
Bruce Perens.
There is a working group on license convergence that has not yet officialy invited me on board but I think I will get in to their next meeting. Hopefully at that time they will see that I am not an ogre and will invite me to be a regular participant.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Hi all!
Wasn't there an outstanding copyright-court-case with some people from the open-source-community?
Why should we (the open source community) trust Novell ? Why should we trust Novell while court case 9704-339 (4th Judicial District Court) is still outstanding ?
For those of you who don't know, this court case
alleges (using the evidence of contractors who
worked for Novell as well as internal Novell
documents), that much of Novell's BorderManager
product (a closed source product) was based on the Squid proxy server (a GPL product).
Why should we trust a company who thinks the following of us :
"..... Once again we must balance the costs in-house development of "comparable code" against the costs and risks of simply taking their code and using it... this last group of copyright holders could be particularly troublesome for Novell to deal with.... "
If Novell now also favours the open-source-method, this could mean a view things:
1.) It's "we too" (marketing!)
2.) They really fear, that Micros~1 and their
Active-Directory could make Novell obsolete. So
they use coopetition-tactics to hurt them
(so they are Linux-friendly as long as it's favorable for them)
We'll see. Currently Novell might be ally, but who know's what they'll do in the near future? The license is a bit loose on prohibiting mayor changes to the license. They could (IMHO! I'm no lawyer) in the next version of the licence change it to their very own rules...
Bruce,
I think the problems with the license can pretty much be summarized into the following three points (two of which you mention above):
If you look at this from Novell's point of view, this is a perfect spot to be in. They get all the good karma that comes with being a supporter of true "open source," but have put it under a license where none but the most mercenarial coders (i.e. those who will contribute to anything regardless of license) will even touch the code. On top of that, nobody from either of the other license camps can touch the code--the NCL will "infect" BSD programs, and NCL's "you can't relicense" clause prevents GPL programs from incorporating the code.
In short, it's good as far as being "open source," but it seems to have been purposely designed not to play well with existing OSS licenses. Interoperability among licences should be a higher priority for the OSS community in general, and this is a great example.
Nathan StrongOpen Directory: Open Source Java
Female Prison Rape in NY
I'd rather see more technological innovation instead of more legal/licensing innovations. In the end, that's the only thing that matters
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As far as I can see there are very few differences between the GPL and NCL. There are no "hidden" details that would give Novell any rights to your work. Like the GPL dirivitive works get put under the NCL.
Unlike the GPL the NCL doesn't specificly mention what would happen in the event of a patent dispute or other restrictions such as export laws.
The NCL has one last interesting feature. By agreeing to it you also agree to how any breaches of the agreement will be handled. In paragraph 5 the NCL specificly states how any breaches shall be handled. And it states that the costs incured in any legal battle will be payed by the "losing" side. Interesting...
It seems to have basically the same requirements as the GNU GPL, only expressed differently. However, code under this licence will not be compatible with GPLed code. I wonder why, therefore, they are not using a GPL-compatible licence.
I can understand the need for about three versions of Open Source license
a) a BSD type license
b) a GPL type licence
c) a "commercial" license which allows the originator some rights over how his code is used to prevent forking and 'embrace & extend' by rivals. i.e. a sort of you can see the source, propose modifications and fixes, but we retain control over distribution license.
Why do people keep coming up with their own variations on a theme ?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
The licenses that are coming out are innovative they let people share ideas and contribute to existing technologies. I'm glad that there are people like Bruce taking care of getting these licenses properly reviewed by peers so that when I get around to releasing my own killer app or start contributing to a project myself,I know that my cvscommit will stand on solid legal ground!
thanks Bruce.
I'm beginning to wonder about the proliferation of licenses in a slightly new light:
What if it's not merely a problem to have new licenses pop up that are more complex, more restrictive, more Gotcha-Source(where users presume rights that some small clause shoved into five words restrict) than the standard, rather simple to generally understand but well defined and heavily thought out GPL, LGPL, and BSD licenses?
What if it's a significant worry to have licenses that aren't complex enough?
After all, we talk alot about the benefits of Open Source turning the copyright system inside out upon itself, protecting situations where others restrict further usage of code beyond what the original authors ever intended. I like the Novell License for its simplicity and its lack of Gotchas for the user, but I have to wonder if there's not some small aspect of a ticking time bomb for Novell built into it?
There's a reason for every single clause in the GPL. The arguments are publically available and quite searchable. (Is there an annotated GPL out there, incidentally?) Novell's license isn't nearly as extensive, which could create a situation where *cough* a certain devious company sets up a front startup to Embrace and Extend Novell's code in a manner so as to make them anexample to the industry.
The GPL closes loopholes. It almost feels like the only reasons for this Novell license to exist are to leave them open.
There's a dark side to that. As far as I know, copyright law is set up such that one has no rights to the content beyond that which is explicitly granted. It is not inconcievable that Novell could be forced(or has individuals counting on being able to) to go to court to try to reclose a loophole that never should have been there in the first place, making a whole bunch of noise about the inadequacy of Open Source in the process.
It's a Media War, and all that.
Now, I doubt this is what Novell is up to. They've been doing some pretty cool stuff for Linux. (Windows 9x is another matter.) But they're going down a dangerous road.
I offer an alternative: Give us differential licenses! People like to refer to licenses using phrases like "GPL but you can't fork" or "BSD but you need to advertise in Playboy" or whatnot. If there's a pressing freedom or restriction that needs to be embedded in the license, ship the GPL with a patch. There will be some noise made, and your license should not include GPL in the name, but at leaast it would be simple to derive what specific changes you desired.
It's just not clear from the Novell license why, say, they didn't just go with BSD. And that's a problem.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
I am a lawyer, but this isn't legal advice. If you need legal advice, see a laywer licensed in your jurisdiction.
Reality is that there are plenty of GPL-derived, or Quasi-GPL (QGPL) licenses already out there.
*Every* time someone purports to release something under the GPL but codes to a non-GPL library (KDE & QT, lyx & xforms, etc.), the result is not GPL, simply by the way the law works.
These products *do not* violate their own license; this is legally impossible. Instead, the actions taken by the authors amend to purported license. With LyX, we made the qualifications explicit a couple of releases ago; KDE may be too far into flamewar for this to be possible.
I thought that "Open Source" _was_ trademarked... or did that fall through?
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Doesn't the third licence sound like the SCSL?
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
I think we should give credit to where it's due :)
Thanks
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The liscense looks good, however the lawspeak words like "hereto", "thereof" etc. are annoying. I want a liscense agreement written in C or PERL. Then we'll know what we're agreeing to. Also, why are parts of the agreement IN CAPS? The lawyers are hurting my ears.
Novell is not losing or in trouble. The only problem novell has had in the last few years was no one wanted to upgrade to netware 4 because 3.12 was SOOO stable. The benefits of NDS have been realized and Netware 5 with Zen is just incredible and my customers are excited.
I personally think that novell is widening it's horizons since they realize that not every network is a totally MS network. Cheers to Novell. One of the last few companies that have a foothold in a MS world.
You can read ESR's announcement on the trademark issue.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
The reason that companies are coming up with their own "Open Source" lisence is so that their code will still be "branded" with the company name.
If Novell decides to release said code under the GPL, it looks to the casual observer that we have another piece of software coming from the GNU project. By releasing it under their own lisence, any derivative of the work will still have the Novell name attacted to it.
It might seem like a pain to all of us who have to carefully read through the lawyer speak, but I think it is a small price to pay for having a new source of Open Source projects. Novell gets some name recognition and we get access to the code.
Seems like a win win situation to me...
- Cees
Bruce
Bruce Perens.