[okfn-discuss] possible OKD conformant licence: The MirOS Licence

Sat Jul 5 20:37:24 UTC 2008

Hi all,

I sent this to info@ some time ago, after learning about OSD and OKD from a
http://symlink.ch/ article:

The attached licence is the text of the MirOS Licence including commentary.
It’s based upon the historic permission clause and the BSD licence, but op-
timised for European law (the disclaimer: over here, you cannot disclaim e-
verything, just almost) and no longer restricted to software (it applies to
a “work” instead). We have been trying to get it OSI approved for a while –
the cōnsensus on the list was that it’s obviously conformant, but it didn’t
get approved back then due to “licence proliferation”; a board member today
suggested me I ask for it again though – as it applies to software as well;
I have learned today of the OKD and OSD and found our licence to qualify if
the MIT Database Licence does.

If you think so too, please add our licence to the list of approved ones. A
possible official web link would be: http://mirbsd.de/MirOS-Licence
(note English spelling)

I got this response (shortened):

Jonathan Gray dixit:

> Many thanks for your message Thorsten!
>
> I haven't had a chance to look at this properly yet, but its probably best in
> the first instance if you emailed our discuss list with this to see what people
> think, and to let them know about the MirOS license!

> I'll be happy to update the site - but its probably best to let everyone know
> first, as the OKD is quite community led!

As this is going to a mailing list, I'll append the licence text below in-
stead of attaching it. I hope it will pass as OKD conformant and be added
to the list. Discussion is also okay, of course.

/*-
 * Copyright (c) year, year, year, ...
 *	First M. Last <user at host.domain>
 *
 * Provided that these terms and disclaimer and all copyright notices
 * are retained or reproduced in an accompanying document, permission
 * is granted to deal in this work without restriction, including un-
 * limited rights to use, publicly perform, distribute, sell, modify,
 * merge, give away, or sublicence.
 *
 * This work is provided "AS IS" and WITHOUT WARRANTY of any kind, to
 * the utmost extent permitted by applicable law, neither express nor
 * implied; without malicious intent or gross negligence. In no event
 * may a licensor, author or contributor be held liable for indirect,
 * direct, other damage, loss, or other issues arising in any way out
 * of dealing in the work, even if advised of the possibility of such
 * damage or existence of a defect, except proven that it results out
 * of said person's immediate fault when using the work as intended.
 */

INSTRUCTIONS:
To apply the template[1] specify the years of copyright (separated by
comma, not as a range), the legal names of the copyright holders, and
the real names of the authors if different. Avoid adding text.

RATIONALE:
This licence is apt for any kind of work (such as source code, fonts,
documentation, graphics, sound etc.) and the preferred terms for work
added to MirBSD. It has been drafted as universally usable equivalent
of the "historic permission notice"[2] adapted to Europen law because
in some (droit d'auteur) countries authors cannot disclaim all liabi-
lities. Compliance to OSD[3] 1.9 and DFSG[4] 1.1 is ensured and GPLv2
compatibility is asserted unless advertising clauses are used.

We believe you are not liable for code inserted which is intellectual
property of third parties, if you were not aware of the fact, act ap-
propriately as soon as you become aware of a problem and seek an ami-
cable solution for all parties.

REFERENCES:
[1] also at http://mirbsd.de/MirOS-Licence
[2] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/historical.php
[3] http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd
[4] http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

___________________________________________________________________________
$MirOS: src/share/misc/licence.template,v 1.24 2008/04/22 11:43:31 tg Rel $

Thanks in advance!

bye,
//mirabilos
-- 
Sometimes they [people] care too much: pretty printers [and syntax highligh-
ting, d.A.] mechanically produce pretty output that accentuates irrelevant
detail in the program, which is as sensible as putting all the prepositions
in English text in bold font.	-- Rob Pike in "Notes on Programming in C"