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This is incorrect, you are mistaken about public domain and about what the article says. The very first criteria in OSI’s definition of “Open Source” is: 1. Fr

by dahart 4y ago

This is incorrect, you are mistaken about public domain and about what the article says. The very first criteria in OSI’s definition of “Open Source” is: 1. Free Redistribution The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale. “Rationale: By constraining the license to require free redistribution, we eliminate the temptation for licensors to throw away many long-term gains to make short-term gains. If we didn't do this, there would be lots of pressure for cooperators to defect.” https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated Public domain has no such restriction. Public domain always allows people to do literally anything they want, sell & redistribute the public domain code in any form they choose, make it proprietary, redistribute the code under any other license at all, and generally do anything they want for any reason including throwing away long-term gains for short-term gains.

seba_dos1 4y ago
It's you who is massively mistaken. What you quoted is one of the requirements needed to consider a license to be an Open Source license. To paraphrase it, it says "an Open Source license can't restrict any party from selling or redistributing the software (...), otherwise it's not an Open Source license". In other words, a license that doesn't restrict selling and redistribution (and also fulfills all the other requirements) can be considered Open Source. You even quoted it yourself: "The license shall not restrict". Public Domain code does not restrict these things (nor anything else), therefore it's perfectly compatible with Open Source licenses and Public Domain code can obviously be considered Open Source [EDIT: at least assuming that it's actually effectively Public Domain, which can be hard to determine - see commoner's reply]. Sure, you can also take some Public Domain code and stamp a non-free license on it (just like you can do with code under some [but not all] of Open Source licenses, like MIT) - which I guess may be what caused your confusion?
- commoner 4y ago
  Public domain code is not automatically considered open source, but for a different reason: > Public Domain software may come with the rights delivered by those “four freedoms”, but you can’t be sure. It will depend where the software was written, where you are located, who the author is and where the people you are sharing the software with are located. A deployer or developer will need to at very least ask for advice before proceeding, and most likely will need to secure the services of a legal professional with experience in copyright law in each affected country. Even asking the author is unlikely to be conclusive. That’s why public domain software may be free software but is not certain to be. > A solution would be to create a form of words to be used by the author to dedicate something to the public domain. It could simply disclaim ownership for the jurisdictions where that is possible, and then grant a copyright license that has the same practical effect as a public domain dedication for jurisdictions where ownership of copyright can never be disclaimed. Such a formulation has been published by the Creative Commons. They call it “CC0” and it is widely used and well respected. https://opensource.org/node/878 https://opensource.org/node/878 However, you are right that the Open Source Definition's "Free Redistribution" clause doesn't require an open source license to be a copyleft license. The "long-term gains" rationale is an explanation for the motivation of the "Free Redistribution" clause, and is not a restriction on what open source licenses can say. There are many open source licenses that allow "people to do literally anything they want, sell & redistribute [] code in any form they choose, make it proprietary, redistribute the code under any other license at all, and generally do anything they want for any reason including throwing away long-term gains for short-term gains", including 0BSD and MIT-0: https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical > Edit: You replied just before I edited my comment to mention 0BSD and MIT-0. I agree that these are good alternatives to CC0.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    Ha, right, thanks for clarifying that. Public Domain is a legal mess on its own - and in fact, CC0 may not be a perfect license to use if you want to dedicate your software to Public Domain because it's explicit that it doesn't grant any patent rights (which is why CC0 code has been recently disallowed in Fedora [0]). 0BSD [1] and MIT-0 [2] are good alternatives with same practical effect, even though they don't try to use the actual institution of Public Domain where it's available. [0] https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/RRYM3CLYJYW64VSQIXY6IF3TCDZGS6LM/ https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fe... [1] https://opensource.org/licenses/0BSD https://opensource.org/licenses/0BSD [2] https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT-0 https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT-0
- dahart 4y ago
  You’re highlighting the reason the author wrote his article. You’re still misunderstanding the OSI license. The OSI license is a limitation on redistribution, and in case you missed it, it clearly states “the license shall not require a royalty or other fee”. That clause is fundamentally incompatible with Public Domain. The purpose of that clause was explained in the “rationale” statement; it’s an attempt to preserve and protect the open-sourceness of open source. There is no such protection with public domain. This is exactly what @ssddandrown was talking about, it’s the whole point of the article. > You even quoted it yourself: "The license shall not restrict". I did quote it, I think you got confused about which license this is talking about. It’s referring to what the redistributed code’s new license is allowed to do. Public domain code can legally be redistributed under a license that does restrict what others can do with it. OSI Open Source code does not permit redistribution with a restrictive license.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    > The OSI license is a limitation on redistribution There's no "the OSI license". There's a set of requirements OSI defined to classify software licenses as either Open Source or not. > it clearly states “the license shall not require a royalty or other fee” Exactly. To be considered Open Source, the license can not require any fee (among other things). Public Domain code (let's assume CC0 here to avoid any confusion on its legal status) does not require any fee, therefore it can be considered Open Source. > it’s an attempt to preserve and protect the open-sourceness of open source Yes, that's why the licenses that require the code to stay free are permitted to be called Open Source. It's very clearly not a requirement. > OSI Open Source code does not permit redistribution with a restrictive license. Of course it does. Please read the OSI guidelines once again, from the beginning till the end. Throw away your previously held misconceptions.
    - dahart 4y ago
      It’s the redistribution license that cannot request a fee. Public domain allows the redistributor to charge a fee. You’re getting confused about the author’s license vs the redistribution license. > let's assume CC0 here to avoid any confusion on its legal status) does not require any fee, therefore it can be considered Open Source. Poor choice. CC0 is not considered open source by OSI. https://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero https://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero

by dahart 4y ago

seba_dos1 4y ago

It's you who is massively mistaken. What you quoted is one of the requirements needed to consider a license to be an Open Source license. To paraphrase it, it says "an Open Source license can't restrict any party from selling or redistributing the software (...), otherwise it's not an Open Source license". In other words, a license that doesn't restrict selling and redistribution (and also fulfills all the other requirements) can be considered Open Source. You even quoted it yourself: "The license shall not restrict". Public Domain code does not restrict these things (nor anything else), therefore it's perfectly compatible with Open Source licenses and Public Domain code can obviously be considered Open Source [EDIT: at least assuming that it's actually effectively Public Domain, which can be hard to determine - see commoner's reply]. Sure, you can also take some Public Domain code and stamp a non-free license on it (just like you can do with code under some [but not all] of Open Source licenses, like MIT) - which I guess may be what caused your confusion?

commoner 4y ago
Public domain code is not automatically considered open source, but for a different reason: > Public Domain software may come with the rights delivered by those “four freedoms”, but you can’t be sure. It will depend where the software was written, where you are located, who the author is and where the people you are sharing the software with are located. A deployer or developer will need to at very least ask for advice before proceeding, and most likely will need to secure the services of a legal professional with experience in copyright law in each affected country. Even asking the author is unlikely to be conclusive. That’s why public domain software may be free software but is not certain to be. > A solution would be to create a form of words to be used by the author to dedicate something to the public domain. It could simply disclaim ownership for the jurisdictions where that is possible, and then grant a copyright license that has the same practical effect as a public domain dedication for jurisdictions where ownership of copyright can never be disclaimed. Such a formulation has been published by the Creative Commons. They call it “CC0” and it is widely used and well respected. https://opensource.org/node/878 https://opensource.org/node/878 However, you are right that the Open Source Definition's "Free Redistribution" clause doesn't require an open source license to be a copyleft license. The "long-term gains" rationale is an explanation for the motivation of the "Free Redistribution" clause, and is not a restriction on what open source licenses can say. There are many open source licenses that allow "people to do literally anything they want, sell & redistribute [] code in any form they choose, make it proprietary, redistribute the code under any other license at all, and generally do anything they want for any reason including throwing away long-term gains for short-term gains", including 0BSD and MIT-0: https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical > Edit: You replied just before I edited my comment to mention 0BSD and MIT-0. I agree that these are good alternatives to CC0.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  Ha, right, thanks for clarifying that. Public Domain is a legal mess on its own - and in fact, CC0 may not be a perfect license to use if you want to dedicate your software to Public Domain because it's explicit that it doesn't grant any patent rights (which is why CC0 code has been recently disallowed in Fedora [0]). 0BSD [1] and MIT-0 [2] are good alternatives with same practical effect, even though they don't try to use the actual institution of Public Domain where it's available. [0] https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/RRYM3CLYJYW64VSQIXY6IF3TCDZGS6LM/ https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fe... [1] https://opensource.org/licenses/0BSD https://opensource.org/licenses/0BSD [2] https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT-0 https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT-0
dahart 4y ago
You’re highlighting the reason the author wrote his article. You’re still misunderstanding the OSI license. The OSI license is a limitation on redistribution, and in case you missed it, it clearly states “the license shall not require a royalty or other fee”. That clause is fundamentally incompatible with Public Domain. The purpose of that clause was explained in the “rationale” statement; it’s an attempt to preserve and protect the open-sourceness of open source. There is no such protection with public domain. This is exactly what @ssddandrown was talking about, it’s the whole point of the article. > You even quoted it yourself: "The license shall not restrict". I did quote it, I think you got confused about which license this is talking about. It’s referring to what the redistributed code’s new license is allowed to do. Public domain code can legally be redistributed under a license that does restrict what others can do with it. OSI Open Source code does not permit redistribution with a restrictive license.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  > The OSI license is a limitation on redistribution There's no "the OSI license". There's a set of requirements OSI defined to classify software licenses as either Open Source or not. > it clearly states “the license shall not require a royalty or other fee” Exactly. To be considered Open Source, the license can not require any fee (among other things). Public Domain code (let's assume CC0 here to avoid any confusion on its legal status) does not require any fee, therefore it can be considered Open Source. > it’s an attempt to preserve and protect the open-sourceness of open source Yes, that's why the licenses that require the code to stay free are permitted to be called Open Source. It's very clearly not a requirement. > OSI Open Source code does not permit redistribution with a restrictive license. Of course it does. Please read the OSI guidelines once again, from the beginning till the end. Throw away your previously held misconceptions.
  - dahart 4y ago
    It’s the redistribution license that cannot request a fee. Public domain allows the redistributor to charge a fee. You’re getting confused about the author’s license vs the redistribution license. > let's assume CC0 here to avoid any confusion on its legal status) does not require any fee, therefore it can be considered Open Source. Poor choice. CC0 is not considered open source by OSI. https://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero https://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero