Ted, first let's make it clear we're not inventing any of the issues - these are things that turn up when you present this license to people that have put a lot of time into thinking about free licenses. Using external references to judge where we stand is not unreasonable. If you care about where my position comes from, please read the below references, I'm sort of tired of explaining this.
Details.
The big things (as far as Debian is concerned, I haven't read OSI's stuff, but I suspect it's a subset) - 1. Indemnification - the problems Debian have mentioned are - it is too wide (I pay for any suit brought by users to Apple? regardless of what I do?) and it is unfair (Apple should be protected from being sued over Squeak, since it releases it non-commercially. True. Why should this be at the expense of other non-commercial distributors?). DFSG states that licenses should be fair (see www.debian.org/social_contract - "5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups" ). You can see an example of indemnification language that's more general and fair at www.opensource.org/licenses/cpl.php.
2. Fonts - pretty obvious and not hard to fix once they're removed.
3. Export - mentions Apple and US (any reason non-USers should be specifically subject to US laws, any more than is implied by international treaties?). Can be generalized so it says something like "complies with law".
Smaller things - 1. Choice of law - again, mentions Apple specifically, and discriminates against everyone else.
2. Someone whined that it discriminates Quebecians by requiring them to deal with a contract in English. Big flame war. Not a serious objection.
Daniel
Ted Kaehler Ted@SqueakLand.org wrote:
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<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 } --></style><title>Re: [Squeakfoundation]Re: Sublicensing seems possible</title></head><body> <div>Folks,</div> <div><x-tab> </x-tab>I am glad to hear that Apple seems to be cooperative.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>Daniel described it quite good - we are not aiming to go in the</blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite>direction of FSF (How come a lot of you guys think this? I have no idea</blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite>where this notion is coming from.) but in the "opposite direction",</blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite>which means even more BSDish than the current license.</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div><x-tab> </x-tab>Glad to hear this.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>The Apple Software is pre-release, and untested, or not fully tested.</blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite>The 'Font' language is another area of 'state' which can change.</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div><x-tab> </x-tab>Thank you for the list of things wrong with the current license. I like details. Please be more specific about what you'd like to see changed.</div> <div><br></div> <div><x-tab> </x-tab>Exactly what is the problem with indemnification? What is wrong with the licensee promising not to sue Apple, given that the system is not coming directly from Apple? If we added a clause saying that the licensee promises not to sue the Oxfam relief fund, would that make the license bad?</div> <div><br></div> <div><x-tab> </x-tab>On the subject of export, AFAIK everything licensed by any US company is subject to the restrictions listed in this clause. </div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Geneva" color="#000000">Apple Software may not be exported or reexported (i) into (or to a national or resident of) any U.S. embargoed country or (ii) to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Department of Commerce's Table of Denial Orders.</font></blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>While you might remove this clause, all software generated in the US is subject to it. Apple can't change that. Any Debian or OSI OpenSource licensed software that originated in the US has the same restriction.</div> <div><br></div> <div>What other parts are you proposing to change?</div> <div><br></div> <div>--Ted.</div> <div><br></div> </body> </html>
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