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The argument that "This is Not Open Source Software" feels unsupported and very sloppy. > Thus, the licensee pays a price to use the library. It is not a price
by cjbprime 10y ago
The argument that "This is Not Open Source Software" feels unsupported and very sloppy.
> Thus, the licensee pays a price to use the library. It is not a price paid with money. [..] I could be missing something, but I have never seen any other software license use such a condition and also claim to be an open source license.
This just isn't thinking creatively. The GPL also requires a "price to be paid, but not with money" -- you give up your right to keep changes you make secret (if you distribute them). Yet no-one seriously argues that the GPL isn't an open source license.
If there is something about giving up the right to file patent lawsuits that is totally different to giving up the right to keep your changes secret, the article doesn't say what that difference is. Giving up the right to keep your changes secret is surely more stringent than giving up your right to file patent infringement lawsuits against one company. Why, then, should the latter be a dealbreaker for an open source license?
- gcp 10y agoI think the argument is that the grant is asymmetric. GPL is "I open up, you open up". The retaliation clause Facebook uses is "you don't get to sue us, but we may sue you".
- cjbprime 10y agoThat's an interesting argument! (But the article didn't make it..) Couldn't you argue that the GPL says "you don't get to keep your changes private, but I do", and so is asymmetric too? It seems normal to me for the rightsholder to retain more rights than the grantee.
- gcp 10y agoYou can keep GPL changes private if you don't publish it, and the same applies to the original author. If you feed back changes, you're mutually bound. But the problem with Facebook's license is not the copyright, it's the patent grant.
- ComodoHacker 10y agoMush simpler. Open source != free as in free beer. That's enough to bust this argument.