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

Tue Jul 8 16:49:51 UTC 2008

> b) Importantly the OKD talks about works as primary and licenses as
> secondary.

I'm confused by this idea.

Are you saying the work itself can determine whether or not it is open?

Isn't it the license or licenses that determine that?

Am I misreading your intent?

Could you give me an example of a work that uses an 'open' license, or
is in the Public Domain, but still does not meet the OKD because of
something specific to that work?

Or is there an example of a work under a 'closed' license that still
meets the OKD?

> These conditions extend beyond specific requirements on the licence

How could that be?  What would cause an end-user to add these extra
requirements?

Maybe you are saying the OKD is about how each instance of a work is
'handled' or 'hosted' by a user, and not about the constraints
enforced by the licensing over all instances?

If that is the case, I would like to talk more about this.

> specifically item 1 (Access) mandates that the work must be made available
> (this is similar to the idea behind 'Affero' type clauses).

But "the work" is usually the end-user 'binary' or 'object' code.  It
might be a rendered 3D model, or maybe lossy-compressed media (such as
.mp3 or .jpg) or the rendered HTML for a wiki.

The "sources" of such data are the pre-rendered state of that data
such as the .3ds file for a 3D model, or the very large .wav file for
the .mp3, or the bitmap file for the .jpg, or for the wiki it would be
the "input text" that you modify in the edit-box.

The GNU AGPL does not require the rendered binaries be made available,
and does not require distribution except to those that have interacted
with the program.

Sorry to be nitpicky here, but many people think the GNU [A]GPL
licenses require blanket distribution - which would disallow private
copies.  This is false.  These licenses only require the "Sources" and
"Corresponding Sources" be made available, and ONLY to those that
received the "Object" or, for the GNU AGPL, for those that used the
program even without receiving the "Object" code.

> I am not quite sure what the GPL delivers here above CC by-sharealike.

The GNU GPL is extremely popular for software because of the
protections it enforces.  It is a form of defense.

The CC-SA is incompatible with the GNU GPL, and does not defend the
community from those that would withhold sources to make the work no
longer open.

> will be clauses that are specific to that particular area -- e.g. GPL makes
> frequent reference to 'source code' and 'object code' which does not,
> necessarily, make much sense for a e.g. play or a sound-recording).

Hmm...  I'm going to have to disagree.

The "sources" for a play would be the scripts and descriptions of some
other things like maybe how to run the lights.

The "sources" for a sound recording are the uncompressed original
tracks if it was a lossy compression.

On the other hand, sometimes even software doesn't have distinct
'object' and 'source' forms.  An interpreted language that is never
distributed as "object code" - such as JavaScript is an example.

> may be different IP rights (or the same IP rights applied differently) in
> different areas. For example, the EU, has a sui generis "database right"
> specifically for 'databases (whereas for normal code it is copyright --
> though I would note that in many common-law jurisdictions data collections
> have also traditionally been protected by copyright). To see how difficult
> things can get see this article [3] which was about copyright in Huffman
> encoding tables.
>
> [3]:<http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/SCRIPT-ed/vol3-2/khong.asp>

Well, lawyers have incentive to keep non-lawyers perplexed, so the
unnecessary complexity is not surprising.

Patrick