RFC 004: licensing #7
Conversation
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| ## Drawbacks | ||
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| If someone were to create a proprietary intermezzOS and make piles of cash off |
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Does this allow someone to simply go to a publisher and say "please print this github repo" and then earn lots of $$$? That sounds unfair.
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By being open source, this is already generally true. They must acknowledge where it's derived from, but other than that, it's okay.
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Or rather, right now, everything is 'all rights reserved', which is weird, because it means that strictly speaking, even forks aren't exactly legal?
Any open source license will open us up to this issue. Where the GDFL would kick in is this situation:
- someone forks the repo, makes proprietary changes, and publishes a book about it.
At this point, what happens diverges:
- Under this proposal, well, nothing.
- If we chose the GFDL, they would be required to give a copy of the source to anyone who purchased it from them, which those people are then also free to re-publish.
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In order for this RFC to be accepted, these contributors to the book must agree:
I apologize for complicating your lives by not having this set up in the first place. :( If you're okay with your contribution being licensed under CC0, which is basically "public domain", please leave a comment saying so. |
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👍 for me |
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I've added an alternative: do nothing, everything is still all-rights-reserved. |
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👍 makes sense to me. |
Would that mean I couldn't reuse the parts I have written myself? I would be a little uneasy with that. ;) There a couple alternatives in between you could consider though?
Also you could have different licenses for the book and the code, like MIT/Apache2 so that anyone can use it however they want. But the book as CC BY-NC to avoid someone commercializing your (and all the contributors) hard work. |
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sounds good to me. |
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I agree to CC0 |
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I agree. |
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I agree. |
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👍 I agree. Thanks for involving me in the process, too. |
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wfm |
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👍 |
You have the rights to your contributions, so even in that model, you would be able to reuse them.
Yes, this would be possible too, I guess. I see it as a more lightweight form of the GFDL, and it seems like most people are okay with the liberal licenses so far. |
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CC0 for the book and MIT/Apache2 for code sounds good to me 👍 |
Ah ok :)
I was merely proposing an alternative to the alternative and because the comment of @rylev, who sounded a little worried of commercial derivatives. :) |
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sounds good to me 👍 |
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Count me as a 👍 and a :) |
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Confirming this is good with me. Thanks for the clear explanations, @steveklabnik! |
Could you elaborate about what specific problems a "free software" (i.e. copyleft) license would cause for students?
If someone were to create an "open source" (i.e. permissive) fork of intermezzOS and make piles of cash off it, I think we should be delighted. The problem with proprietary isn't the cash, it's that intermezzOS would have to compete against a proprietary version of itself which gives nothing back to the community. A proprietary version which might be "enhanced" by DRM, tivoization, spyware, and other nasty things. I've been looking around for any OS projects that are GPL3-licensed, because that license includes protection against tivoization, but I can't find any. (GNU Hurd might be closest, but it is GPLv2+, and that could change if they decide to re-implement on the L4 microkernel.) There's also plenty of vocally anti-copyleft projects out there already (Minix 3, OpenBSD). This is why I was hopeful that intermezzOS would go with a copyleft license. I understand your rationale, and I'm glad you're looking at the consequences of permissive licenses realistically, i.e.:
But I really wish somebody would be inspired to push back against the sea of devices which we can't take apart, tinker with, or learn from, despite being built on free software. If one had the same freedom to tinker with and install their own toy OS onto their iPhones or Kindle or any Android device, as they may with a generic PC, I think we'd have a lot more people interested in and working on operating system design. The usual justification for permissive licensing is that one wants their project to be "business friendly," so corporate interests won't be afraid to add it to their stack, and might (if we're lucky) contribute patches back. I think if this project will be a resource for individual humans and students to learn from, it should try to protect its openness with a copyleft license. |
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👍 I agree |
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I consent! <3 On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 7:51 AM, Daan van Berkel [email protected]
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Fine be me. |
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I wholeheartedly agree. |
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Last call for anyone on this thread who hasn't checked something off. If you don't like this change, I can figure out how to remove any of your contributions. |
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I consented, but there isn't a tick mark before my name. Just to make it totally clear. I am ok with the proposed changes. |
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I apparently have not logged in for quite awhile. I'm not sure why I am considered a contributor as I had forked the book project some time ago to go through it my leisure with no plans on making any meaningful contributions. So, sorry for the delay in my response. Either way, I am okay with this change. |
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@DalinSeivewright no worries! I got this from git history, so I thought you had contributed at least one thing, but maybe that was wrong. |
TL;DR: CC0 and MIT/Apache2
Rendered: https://github.com/intermezzOS/rfcs/blob/licensing/text/0004-licensing.md