-
-
Save kemitchell/68633f5aef7215f070b7dc685c3a155d to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Berneout Kit License CON-NOT-PAT-SVC | |
Version 0.0.0-prerelease | |
https://berneout.org/kit/0.0.0-prerelease/CON-NOT-PAT-SVC | |
Each contributor uses this license to make their | |
contributions to the software freely available to others | |
at minimum risk to themself. | |
**This software comes "as is". No contributor makes any | |
warranty.** | |
**You may not sue any contributor for any reason related | |
to this license or their contributions to the software.** | |
Each contributor gives everyone permission to do everything | |
that would otherwise infringe copyright in the software. | |
PAT: Each contributor gives everyone permission to | |
do everything with the software that would otherwise | |
infringe patents they have or acquire, on account of | |
their contributions. | |
NOT: You must ensure that everyone who receives a | |
copy of the software from you also receives copies, | |
or free-of-charge access to copies, of this license, | |
any licensing notices, and any notices about how to get | |
source code. | |
CON: Unless you add written notice of different license | |
terms to specific work, you must license work on the | |
software that you send to any contributor as contributions | |
under this license. | |
SVC: This license does not obligate any contributor to fix | |
software bugs, add features, provide support, or perform | |
any other services. |
-
You're right, "free of charge access" beats around the bush a bit. What I'd like to accomplish in a few words, if I can, is letting folks off the hook who convey the same information as found in license comments and so on, but do so without copying. For example, providing an SPDX identifier or URI for the license terms, rather than a copy of the terms themselves.
-
If you accept a contribution under an incompatible license, you have a license compatibility problem. With very rare exception, one public license can't change the terms of another, independent public license. But there may be contributions that you want that can't come in under the same terms. For example, there may be MIT-licensed code out there that can be pasted into your package. Someone finds that code---not the original author---and copies it over into a pull request to you. You end up distributing under these terms plus The MIT License.
@jashkenas: It struck me that my comments on compatibility were pretty inside-baseball. A few notes there:
Software public license compatibility issues are almost exclusivity a problem of copyleft licenses. There are some permissive licenses with annoying procedural requirements that create the odd compat problem, but those licenses are so rare (often for just this reason) that we don't see them much.
Traditional copyleft licenses, which require licensing derivative works on the same terms, address compatibility issues with special relicensing or add-ons to make nice with particular versions of particular copyleft licenses, usually GPL-2.0 or GPL-3.0. For example:
- AGPL-3.0 section 13
- GPL-3.0 section 13
- All the stuff going on with EPL-2.0 right now
- The MPL-2.0 compat dance
The Berneout Kit repository has some early sketches of copyleft-style source disclosure and license-terms components, but copyleft is probably a Kit 2.0 feature, if at all. As a general rule, permissive/pushover/academic licenses are far easier to write, though they're still far from easy, full stop.
I love it! The plain english wordings of the warranty disclaimer, PAT, NOT, CON and SVC portions are lovely.
Minor q's:
"free-of-charge access to copies" feels a little extra, and squirrelly. It almost begs for jerks to try and find a loophole in it. "But your honor, the plaintiff could have easily driven to our office and asked the secretary for a copy at any time!"
I've never been terribly comfortable with how the CON alternative licensing can play out in practice. What happens under Berneout-CON if I want to accept a patch under a license that's subtly incompatible? Seems easier just to say it must be under the same terms as this license.