Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 00:48:18 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FYI: Plan9 open sourced Message-ID: <3EF2BC42.D6F9D3AC@mindspring.com> References: <200306200530.h5K5UNPF082420@bitblocks.com>
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Bakul Shah wrote: > Basically the new license is very similar to BSD's (close > enough for me). You may want to read license related threads > on comp.os.plan9 to see what others have to say. > > http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/newlicense.html > > If they had done this 12 years ago, the free OS landscape > would've been very different. It is not clear to me that in (2)(a) "in source code and object code form" that the "and" could not be construed to require source distribution. It also seems that (3)(A)(b) might be construed as "viral", but it does not seem that it would be an offer of source. The patent indeminification is something that most O.S. licenses forget to touch on. A number of the terms seem to be designed to avoid the "SCO claims it owns everything" problem; however, they appear to assume both that (1) all contributions are in good faith, rather than done maliciously to contaminate the code, and (2) that such contamination won't get into the source tree accidently, and (3) that a commercial employee making contributions has the right under contract with, or the explicit approval of, his or her employer to make said contribution. The indemnification terms for "Commercial Distributors" vs. the controbutors will probably discourage commercial distribution, except by companies with deep pockets, or who are willing to accept potentially significant risk. All in all, this is in fact freer than the BSD license, from an other-than-commercial perspective, since they permit distribution of derivative works under the distributors license, so long as the conditions in (3)(A)(c)(i-iii) and (3)(B) involving additional warrants are complied with by the distributor. If they could clarify the specific issues noted above to mean what they appear to intend them to mean, then this is a rather decent license. Worst case, it offers an alternative to the "UNIX contaminated code" as a starting point, should it come down to that. -- Terry
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