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What is wrong with people who spead fear about "non-osi" license as if that is equal to a proprietary one? Suppose we talk about "sspl" which a lot of people h

What is wrong with people who spead fear about "non-osi" license as if that is equal to a proprietary one? Suppose we talk about "sspl" which a lot of people hate for no reason. Many say "but it is not OSI approved" but I want to ask, does it violate any of the 4 freedoms? If yes then its not a free license, if it does not, then it is not a free license. Same for your blueoak one, does it violate any of the 4 freedoms?

chrismorgan 4y ago
Legal departments are generally conservative in what they will accept and allow. OSI approval of a license is a good indication that it’s sound. This fairly naturally morphed into OSI becoming considered guardians of the definition of “open source”. Legal departments will then, unsurprisingly, look askance at a license that claims to be open source but is not OSI-approved, being leery of the potential implications. Yes, BlueOak-1.0.0 is clearly and unambiguously an open-source and Open Source license. Its absence of OSI approval is for administrative rather than content reasons. And yes, this does show part of the problem of what OSI has become. But it does mean that choosing BlueOak-1.0.0 adds more friction for some users than using the likes of MIT or Apache-2.0 (and that you may hear about it). For me, I have a couple of projects I’m working on that will be exclusively BlueOak-1.0.0 (partly because they’ll be applicationy in shape rather than libraryy, and partly because I just want to promote use of BlueOak-1.0.0), but when working in existing ecosystems I currently tend to go for “BlueOak-1.0.0 plus whatever is customary in that ecosystem”, e.g. `BlueOak-1.0.0 OR MIT OR Apache-2.0` on Rust crates, or `BlueOak-1.0.0 OR ISC` on npm packages (JavaScript), simply because this will make my and others’ lives easiest. In my license information, I recommend using BlueOak-1.0.0 unless you have reason to choose another of the options. (Fun consideration: single-licensing, dual-licensing, trial-licensing… uh oh, the word “trial” has way too many possible meanings.)
- Macha 4y ago
  Isn't dual in this context a synonym of double? So the sequence would be single, double (or dual), triple, quad? There's no "3 of" meaning to trial.
  - chrismorgan 4y ago
    “Trial” certainly has the “three of” meaning; it is merely very uncommon in most fields, probably because of the other, different-etymology meanings of the word trial and the potential for confusion. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trial#Adjective_2 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trial#Adjective_2 I used “single-licensing” because it felt best; I know of no customary term for it, because it doesn’t tend to need a term. I did also contemplate the alternative “sole-licensing”, sole perhaps matching dual. I’d say “double-licensing” isn’t quite identical in usage to “dual-licensing”: “dual-licensing” is well-established as meaning an OR conjunction, whereas “double-licensing” has been used in some fields as an AND conjunction (that is, for regulation purposes, you must be licensed under two sets of laws in order to practice). I won’t speculate on how much this (important) subtlety is a matter of fundamental meaning of the words and how much it’s customary interpretation of an inherent ambiguity.
- Pet_Ant 4y ago
  IANAL but has this been submitted to the OSI? I read the license and don't even see anything they'd even question. They list many licenses (https://opensource.org/licenses/ https://opensource.org/licenses/) that they don't recommend. Is it just not used broadly enough to warrant their time yet? It seems fit for inclusion. Definitely seems to fill the middle ground between "open source" meaning "sanctioned by the OSI" and "meet the open source definition OSD".
  - chrismorgan 4y ago
    It has not—or else it would easily be approved. What the Blue Oak Council said in 2019 was roughly that they weren’t interested in submitting to the OSI because its procedures and policies were broken (based on having been involved with OSI in the past; and I gather there’s wide agreement to this sentiment to at least some degree), though they wouldn’t object if someone else did; and they did offer to submit it as a test case under some proposed new procedures, but nothing happened with that reform. Around the time of the publication of BlueOak-1.0.0, one of its authors wrote “Don’t Rely on OSI Approval (activist approval does not track practical needs)”: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/05/05/Rely-on-OSI.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/05/05/Rely-on-OSI.html (pity about the awful slug in the URL), which explains some of the problems with OSI.
maxloh 4y ago
The license is also not approved by Debain and FSF, along with some big techs like Red Hat.
lmm 4y ago
The line must be drawn, or else open source freedoms will be whittled away by a thousand cuts. The OSI takes the position that the SSPL is a de facto violation of the freedom to run the program as you wish, because it puts complex and far-reaching restrictions on what other software you can use with the covered software, and I'm not aware of any significant entity claiming otherwise.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
  >The OSI takes the position that the SSPL is a de facto violation of the freedom to run the program as you wish, because it puts complex and far-reaching restrictions on what other software you can use with the covered software, 4 freedoms is about freedoms of users. End users. you are talking about freedom of intermediaries that SSPL aims to restrict. As an end user, if you are using SSPL licensed software for your own use, will there be any restriction on you? if you integrate SSPL software into your product, will it be restricted? i dont think so. If you want to SAAS-ify this SSPL software, then only the restrictions of SSPL are triggered. Not in any other case.
  - tpxl 4y ago
    Do licenses differentiate between 'end users' and 'intermediaries'? Both the SAAS provider and the consumer use the code, but in a different context.
    - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
      why not? if i use an MIT code as a "user" when i am an "intermediary" and repackage the same as a proprietary one, my "users" will be end users. they will get only proprietary code, rendering incapable of enjoying 4 freedoms. This is the same thing. if your or your downstream end users' freedom gets restricted, that is a problem
      - tpxl 4y ago
        You cannot run a SAAS without using the code, which makes you a user. This means SSPL restricts your freedoms as a user, intermediary or end.
ajb 4y ago
Do we actually need any more licences? There's a lot to be said for having a small number whose compatibility is well understood.
RobotToaster 4y ago
Isn't the main issue with the sspl that it requires the entire software stack, including operating system, to be licensed under the same license? Which makes it incompatible with running a service on most operating systems.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
  No. only if you resell the DB as a service, then only this clause of SSPL gets triggered. otherwise it is Agpl... if you use SSPL product as a DB, it is same as AGPL

chrismorgan 4y ago

Legal departments are generally conservative in what they will accept and allow. OSI approval of a license is a good indication that it’s sound. This fairly naturally morphed into OSI becoming considered guardians of the definition of “open source”. Legal departments will then, unsurprisingly, look askance at a license that claims to be open source but is not OSI-approved, being leery of the potential implications. Yes, BlueOak-1.0.0 is clearly and unambiguously an open-source and Open Source license. Its absence of OSI approval is for administrative rather than content reasons. And yes, this does show part of the problem of what OSI has become. But it does mean that choosing BlueOak-1.0.0 adds more friction for some users than using the likes of MIT or Apache-2.0 (and that you may hear about it). For me, I have a couple of projects I’m working on that will be exclusively BlueOak-1.0.0 (partly because they’ll be applicationy in shape rather than libraryy, and partly because I just want to promote use of BlueOak-1.0.0), but when working in existing ecosystems I currently tend to go for “BlueOak-1.0.0 plus whatever is customary in that ecosystem”, e.g. `BlueOak-1.0.0 OR MIT OR Apache-2.0` on Rust crates, or `BlueOak-1.0.0 OR ISC` on npm packages (JavaScript), simply because this will make my and others’ lives easiest. In my license information, I recommend using BlueOak-1.0.0 unless you have reason to choose another of the options. (Fun consideration: single-licensing, dual-licensing, trial-licensing… uh oh, the word “trial” has way too many possible meanings.)

Macha 4y ago
Isn't dual in this context a synonym of double? So the sequence would be single, double (or dual), triple, quad? There's no "3 of" meaning to trial.
- chrismorgan 4y ago
  “Trial” certainly has the “three of” meaning; it is merely very uncommon in most fields, probably because of the other, different-etymology meanings of the word trial and the potential for confusion. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trial#Adjective_2 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trial#Adjective_2 I used “single-licensing” because it felt best; I know of no customary term for it, because it doesn’t tend to need a term. I did also contemplate the alternative “sole-licensing”, sole perhaps matching dual. I’d say “double-licensing” isn’t quite identical in usage to “dual-licensing”: “dual-licensing” is well-established as meaning an OR conjunction, whereas “double-licensing” has been used in some fields as an AND conjunction (that is, for regulation purposes, you must be licensed under two sets of laws in order to practice). I won’t speculate on how much this (important) subtlety is a matter of fundamental meaning of the words and how much it’s customary interpretation of an inherent ambiguity.
Pet_Ant 4y ago
IANAL but has this been submitted to the OSI? I read the license and don't even see anything they'd even question. They list many licenses (https://opensource.org/licenses/ https://opensource.org/licenses/) that they don't recommend. Is it just not used broadly enough to warrant their time yet? It seems fit for inclusion. Definitely seems to fill the middle ground between "open source" meaning "sanctioned by the OSI" and "meet the open source definition OSD".
- chrismorgan 4y ago
  It has not—or else it would easily be approved. What the Blue Oak Council said in 2019 was roughly that they weren’t interested in submitting to the OSI because its procedures and policies were broken (based on having been involved with OSI in the past; and I gather there’s wide agreement to this sentiment to at least some degree), though they wouldn’t object if someone else did; and they did offer to submit it as a test case under some proposed new procedures, but nothing happened with that reform. Around the time of the publication of BlueOak-1.0.0, one of its authors wrote “Don’t Rely on OSI Approval (activist approval does not track practical needs)”: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/05/05/Rely-on-OSI.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/05/05/Rely-on-OSI.html (pity about the awful slug in the URL), which explains some of the problems with OSI.

maxloh 4y ago

The license is also not approved by Debain and FSF, along with some big techs like Red Hat.

lmm 4y ago

The line must be drawn, or else open source freedoms will be whittled away by a thousand cuts. The OSI takes the position that the SSPL is a de facto violation of the freedom to run the program as you wish, because it puts complex and far-reaching restrictions on what other software you can use with the covered software, and I'm not aware of any significant entity claiming otherwise.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago
>The OSI takes the position that the SSPL is a de facto violation of the freedom to run the program as you wish, because it puts complex and far-reaching restrictions on what other software you can use with the covered software, 4 freedoms is about freedoms of users. End users. you are talking about freedom of intermediaries that SSPL aims to restrict. As an end user, if you are using SSPL licensed software for your own use, will there be any restriction on you? if you integrate SSPL software into your product, will it be restricted? i dont think so. If you want to SAAS-ify this SSPL software, then only the restrictions of SSPL are triggered. Not in any other case.
- tpxl 4y ago
  Do licenses differentiate between 'end users' and 'intermediaries'? Both the SAAS provider and the consumer use the code, but in a different context.
  - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
    why not? if i use an MIT code as a "user" when i am an "intermediary" and repackage the same as a proprietary one, my "users" will be end users. they will get only proprietary code, rendering incapable of enjoying 4 freedoms. This is the same thing. if your or your downstream end users' freedom gets restricted, that is a problem
    - tpxl 4y ago
      You cannot run a SAAS without using the code, which makes you a user. This means SSPL restricts your freedoms as a user, intermediary or end.

ajb 4y ago

Do we actually need any more licences? There's a lot to be said for having a small number whose compatibility is well understood.

RobotToaster 4y ago

Isn't the main issue with the sspl that it requires the entire software stack, including operating system, to be licensed under the same license? Which makes it incompatible with running a service on most operating systems.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago
No. only if you resell the DB as a service, then only this clause of SSPL gets triggered. otherwise it is Agpl... if you use SSPL product as a DB, it is same as AGPL