OSI Turns Down 4 Licenses; Approves Python Foundation's

Russ Nelson writes "The Open Source Initiative turned down four licenses this week. Not to name names, but one license had a restrictive patent grant that only applied to GPL'ed operating systems. Another was more of a rant than a license. Another was derived from the GPL in violation of the GPL's copyright. And the fourth had insufficient review on the license-discuss mailing list (archives). The one license that did pass was the Python Software Foundation License."

Ummmm...thanks for the update

[BillyGoatThree]

In other news, I just had lunch. It was eggs with cheese, sausage and banana bread. Now I'm working on modifying the docs for the app I fixed. If you promise to keep me posted on what licenses OSI is rejecting, I'll promise to let you know when I get my hair cut.

Re:Wait a minute!

[Trepidity]

If you'd read the GPL, you would answer your own questions. The GPL is a copyrighted document that grants you explicit permission to redistribute it in unmodified form. Thus the GPLed software that includes the GPL license is obviously not in violation, as they are explicitly granted a right to distribute it. What is not granted is a right to modify the GPL itself. The reasoning for this was that if modification were allowed it would dilute the usefulness of the license, as "GPL-derived" licenses might not even be Free Software or Open Source.

You can however provided added or amended licensing conditions without modifying the actual text of the GPL; for example "this program may be distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL with the added requirement that [blah blah]."

tortious

[wiredog]

Tortious refers to torts. Which is the fancy way of saying "lawsuits".

Legal language has lots of latin in it, and the words have very precise meanings.

Restrictive Patent Grant License

[topeka]

The restrictive patent grant license mentioned was probably the submission from Intel, which was a version of the BSD license with patent language added: From this e-mail [crynwr.com]:

Intel modified the BSD license in the following ways:

1. Intel made OPTIONAL the inclusion of a copyright notice (i.e., "Redistributions of source code of the Software may retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer").
2. Intel added certain definitions derived from the patent license in the Common Public License, and added a license grant under certain Intel patents to distribute Intel software contributions, alone or as incorporated in any operating system licensed under the GPL (version 2.0 or later).

Let's name some more names...

[Anonymous Coward]

errg, hit the submit button by mistake.

The Poetic License [chrisbrien.co.uk]

states that:
"The software covered by this license makes no claims about copyright, copyleft or even copy centre (where you take it down to the copy centre and copy it). Make as many copies as you want, for whatever purpose, even if it is to sacrifice those copies in a great floppy pyre. You may even claim copyright, ownership of trademark, originality or patent. You may even sue the real originator for a breach of your claimed copyright. However, this license can't guarantee that this will be in any way successful."
(har de har har)

The CMGPL [crynwr.com]
The GPL without a bunch of sections? Which ones, you ask? Mostly the ones that don't count!

The Intel BSD+Patent License [crynwr.com]
Like BSD, but grants a patent license. Patent license is specifically not granted to use under non-GPL OS's, or with modified versions, although copyright license is the same as BSD.

Re:WhooHoo!

[Arandir]

Well, you heard of "weak copyleft?" Well this is "stong unrestricted." You get more permissions than the MIT/BSD license (really), but the license agreement must be retained in all distributions. This is different from the MIT/BSD licenses in that they require the license to be included, but not necessarily applied to, any copies or derivations.

Re:tortious -WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

From: The 'Lectric Law Library's Lexicon [lectlaw.com]

TORT - A negligent or intentional civil wrong not arising out of a contract or statute. These include "intentional torts" such as battery or defamation, and torts for negligence.

A tort is an act that injures someone in some way, and for which the injured person may sue the wrongdoer for damages. Legally, torts are called civil wrongs, as opposed to criminal ones. (Some acts like battery, however, may be both torts and crimes; the wrongdoer may face both civil and criminal penalties.)

Under traditional law, family members were prohibited from suing each other for torts. The justification was that allowing family members to sue each other would lead to a breakdown of the family. Today, however, many states recognize that if family members have committed torts against each other, there often already is a breakdown in family relationships. Thus, they no longer bar members from suing each other. In these states, spouses may sue each other either during the marriage or after they have separated.

Normally, tort lawsuits against a spouse are brought separate and apart from any divorce, annulment or other family law case. Alabama, Georgia, Nevada, New York and Tennessee, however, allow or encourage combining the tort case with the family law case; New Jersey requires it.

The jurisdictions that still prohibit one family member from suing another include Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, Utah, Wyoming and Washington, D.C. These places may make an exception when the tort is intentional. See, for example, Bounds v. Candle, 611 S.W.2d 685 (Texas 1980); Townsend v. Townsend, 708 S.W.2d 646 (Missouri 1986) and Green v. Green, 446 N.E.2d 837 (Ohio 1982).

An injury; a wrong; hence the expression "an executor de son tort", of his own wrong.

Torts may be committed with force, as trespasses, which may be an injury to the person, such as assault, battery, imprisonment; to the property in possession; or they may be committed without force. Torts of this nature are to the absolute or relative rights of persons, or to personal property in possession or reversion, or to real property, corporeal or encorporeal, in possession or reversion: these injuries may be either by nonfeasance, malfeasance, or misfeasance.