6 ms·
> A call for a standard open license If Elastic wants to see this sustainable licensing model adopted as the norm, it's in their interest to rename the license
by mythz 5y ago
> A call for a standard open license
If Elastic wants to see this sustainable licensing model adopted as the norm, it's in their interest to rename the license so it's not branded to a single company.
- galaxyLogic 5y agoI wonder could they do that? Doesn't ElasticSearch own the copyright to that license? Is it even legal to copy it without their permission?
- chii 5y ago> own the copyright to that license? should the text of the license itself be copyright-able at all?
- galaxyLogic 5y agoI'm not a lawyer but I think any unique text you write you own the copyright to by default. It's a different question whether this should be so or not.
- adolph 5y agoCould part of text be a release of the inherent copyright stemming from creation?
- webmaven 5y agoSure. If you want your text to be as close to public domain as possible, the Creative Commons No Rights Reserved license (AKA CC0) should work: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/ https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc...
- adolph 5y agoI don’t see any disclaimer of copyright for the license text. If another organization took that license text and promoted it as if it were their own, would Creative Commons have grounds to pursue infringement against that other organization? https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode
- galaxyLogic 5y agoMy guess is they could, unless they state somewhere that the license text is licensed with the Creative Commons License or some other permissive license
- zokier 5y agoGPL begins with following: > GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE > Version 3, 29 June 2007 > Copyright © 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <https://fsf.org/ https://fsf.org/> > Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. This is one reason I think SSPL is bit problematic as afaik it's just AGPL with changes, something that is explicitly forbidden.
- ttybird 5y agohttps://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL It is allowed.
- Mikeb85 5y agoYou're not allowed to change a GPL license's terms and conditions and still call it GPL. But if you call it something else you can use some of their terms and add/remove whatever you want.
- mythz 5y agoAnyone could do it, but Elastic should do it since it's in everyone's collective best interests to standardize behind a single sustainable license model with shared goals but that can't happen if it stays branded. MongoDB and Elastic are likely the biggest companies with licenses of similar goals, but I don't ever see Mongo adopting a commercially branded license, they both need to come together to unify behind a single one to lead the way for others to adopt it.
- ent101 5y agoCheck this out: https://www.reddit.com/r/elasticsearch/comments/mv9vxw/can_i_use_the_elastic_license_20_for_other/ https://www.reddit.com/r/elasticsearch/comments/mv9vxw/can_i...
- adolph 5y agoI read that and it’s hilarious. “Hey Sally, can some other company use our license?” “Sure Bob, tell them no sweat.” <time passes> Corp press release: to protect our biz model and IP . . .
- Hamuko 5y agoThe Apache License is branded to a single organization and that's doing fine.
- jillesvangurp 5y agoAnd so are the Eclipse License, The Mozilla Public License and probably a few others. Of course those licenses are generally understood to be open source licenses under the careful definitions and criteria that the free software foundation uses for this. The Elastic license isn't open enough to meet those criteria.
- tehbeard 5y agoKind of missing the detail that it's Apache Software Foundation (a non-profit that's community driven), where as Elastic is a publicly traded company?
- Hamuko 5y agoDoes that actually matter?
- tehbeard 5y agoOne of them operates as a collaborative group to maintain open source software and is well known for that within the development community with decades of proof. The other is a publicly traded company known for a single product (suite), and the licencing troubles they have faced when dealing with hyperscalers like AWS providing their product to their customers.
- Hamuko 5y agoI didn't ask what the difference between the two were, I asked if the difference somehow actually matters when discussing the license.