[Gnu-arch-users] Savannah vs. Open Software License

[Samium Gromoff]

Here i would like to share my feelings about the segmentation
of the free somftware license continuum, in the particular
case of GPL vs. OSL.

The motivating idea behind using OSL is represented in these
posts by Andre Hedrick, the former linux-kernel IDE maintainer and
Linux represenataive on the T13 committee (www.t13.org) on lkml:

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=105893871225183&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=105898915214127&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=105899036815639&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=105899965926228&w=2

Also, from private discussions with Andre i`ve gathered another
point: the worser part is that GPL is constructed in such a way
that it is possible to build a contract which works like that:

"you" is the GPL "raper"

1. you steal the code, modify it and build a product.
2. you sell the binaries, and you provide the source only to the
   people who already own the binaries--so GPL requirements on
   "providing the source" are met.
3. while signing the contract with the consumer you have this
   or something semantically equivalent to this clause included
   in it:

"You, as a user, agree to drop the right to redistribute
 the source code of the binary we sell you."

 The trick is that the international contract law overrides the GPL.

 And then you can sue people for contract breach if they
 redistribute the source.

Like it?

I didn`t and i`m distributing my work under the Open Software
License, as seen at:

www.opensource.org/licenses/osl.php

As you already may have red from the urls i`ve included, Redhat,
Alan Cox, Andre Hedrick and possibly some other people use this
license.

So did i. However when i`ve attempted to host my project on
savannah, i`ve faced the following:

> address@hidden said:
> 
> > A package was submitted to savannah.nongnu.org
> > This mail was sent to address@hidden, address@hidden
> > 
> > Serge Kosyrev aka Samium Gromoff <address@hidden> described the package as 
> > follows:
> > License: other
> > Other License: The GPL prevents one from effectively suing the violator,
> 
> This is an opinion, not an argument.
> 
> > and also it is made in a way which makes it possible to use
> >
> > the contract law trick to override it
> 
> Idem.
> 
> > modifications.
> >
> > Therefore we choosed the Open Software License version 1.1 which adressed 
> > these problems, along with supporting
> >
> > software freedoms.
> 
> This license in his version 1.0 is GPL-incompatible. I assume it is
> still the case with the 1.1 (please correct me if I made a mistake).
> 
> We do not host software under a GPL-incompatible license. You are
> welcome to resubmit your project under a GPL-compatible license.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -- 
> Mathieu Roy

regards, Samium Gromoff