4 ms·

If you don’t want to offer the freedoms of a licence then pick a different one. To choose one with an established meaning and then remove those freedoms undermi

by timmb 5y ago

If you don’t want to offer the freedoms of a licence then pick a different one. To choose one with an established meaning and then remove those freedoms undermines the purpose of having standardised licences. The authors are potentially setting users up for unintended infringement. I see it as similar to organic food. Once you add non-organic ingredients then it’s not organic any more. You can do what you want but it’s fair enough if everyone else asks you to respect the labels they’ve built to let people make informed decisions.

peeters 5y ago
> If you don’t want to offer the freedoms of a licence then pick a different one. That's exactly what they did. Namely, they crafted a custom license that combined requirements from two other licenses -- granted in a confusing way. > The authors are potentially setting users up for unintended infringement. I do think the ambiguity in the contract language would certainly have bearing on any remedy the court would establish if they did find that the users infringed. > I see it as similar to organic food. Once you add non-organic ingredients then it’s not organic any more. You can do what you want but it’s fair enough if everyone else asks you to respect the labels they’ve built to let people make informed decisions. I'm not sure I see the similarities given that legal contracts are not a collection of labels. You don't sign a document that just says "lease" on it. If you're getting at the question of whether AGPLv3 + CC should be able to advertise itself as FOSS, then I agree, but that's not what this part of the conversation is about. If you're implying that they shouldn't be able to use the term "AGPLv3" in their license language, well I don't disagree but I don't know enough about the areas of law that would prevent that (is it trademarked? etc).

by timmb 5y ago

peeters 5y ago

> If you don’t want to offer the freedoms of a licence then pick a different one. That's exactly what they did. Namely, they crafted a custom license that combined requirements from two other licenses -- granted in a confusing way. > The authors are potentially setting users up for unintended infringement. I do think the ambiguity in the contract language would certainly have bearing on any remedy the court would establish if they did find that the users infringed. > I see it as similar to organic food. Once you add non-organic ingredients then it’s not organic any more. You can do what you want but it’s fair enough if everyone else asks you to respect the labels they’ve built to let people make informed decisions. I'm not sure I see the similarities given that legal contracts are not a collection of labels. You don't sign a document that just says "lease" on it. If you're getting at the question of whether AGPLv3 + CC should be able to advertise itself as FOSS, then I agree, but that's not what this part of the conversation is about. If you're implying that they shouldn't be able to use the term "AGPLv3" in their license language, well I don't disagree but I don't know enough about the areas of law that would prevent that (is it trademarked? etc).