There is a lot of recent news about the SSPL license reactions by Red Hat and OSI and others. FWIW (despite the fact that I don't use MongoDB), I agree with their decisions to forego MongoDB software because of its overbroad "copyleft" and "corresponding source" SSPL license requirements. Requiring licensees to disclose the source code of much of their other networking software is a burden too painful.
But I also understand and appreciate the MongoDB business case dilemma. If they just give their software away without some copyleft conditions for free network use, they will not profit much from it. SSPL and that MongoDB issue is not a unique situation. There is also a lot of AGPL license resistance by licensees for many of the same reasons of "overbroad copyleft" and its definition of "corresponding source". I asked Bruce Perens and John Cowen about it privately. They reminded me of the Oracle v. Google case, where various courts had various opinions about whether APIs (and thus the interactions among software components) could be "fair use" or could alternatively require copyleft and licensing. This was recently described on the OSI license-discuss@ email list as "Intimacy in open source," quoting the AGPL and the GPLv3 discussion drafts. I'll suggest instead that all software (especially open source software!) is intended to be intimate with other software, and thus the word "intimate" is both overbroad and completely vague. So is the phrase "corresponding source." Bruce pointed out that we should consider instead the "intent" of the license authors, rather than focus on vague words like "intimacy." The FSF has written volumes about its GPL and AGPL copyleft requirements. We think we know their intent. I like his word "intent." It is an important word in law and with software licenses. But in civil litigation or criminal cases, "intent" can't be used vaguely, or the defendant won't be convicted. Licenses and laws should say exactly what they mean. So, if our community can come up with an adequate definition of "corresponding source" (or "intimacy") in the open source software context to enforce the intent of our network services copyleft licenses, I'm all ears. Neither SSPL nor AGPL currently meet that clarity requirement. /Larry Lawrence Rosen Rosenlaw ( <http://www.rosenlaw.com/> www.rosenlaw.com) LinkedIn: LawrenceRosen 3001 King Ranch Rd., Ukiah, CA 95482 Cell: 707-478-8932 This email is licensed under <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/> CC-BY-4.0. Please copy freely.
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