Chris Petrilli
petrillic@hachyderm.io
I need a software license similar in spirit to GPL without the stench of RMS floating in the air.
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tracing::trace!("algernon was here");
algernon@come-from.mad-scientist.club@petrillic Would the EUPL-1.2 work? It's a copyleft license, similar in spirit to the GPL, but without RMS.
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@algernon @petrillic that license looks interesting but it would be good to see an AGPL equivalent - do you know if one exists?
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tracing::trace!("algernon was here");
algernon@come-from.mad-scientist.club@imcdowall @petrillic As far as I understand the EUPL, it is closer to the AGPL than to regular GPL.
The copyleft clause in section 5 covers both distribution and communication of original & derived works. It defines communication of works in section 1 as:
— ‘Distribution’ or ‘Communication’: any act of selling, giving, lending, renting, distributing, communicating, transmitting, or otherwise making available, online or offline, copies of the Work or providing access to its essential functionalities at the disposal of any other natural or legal person.
So that makes it very AGPL-like, in my reading. But: I'm a mere nerd, not a lawyer.
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@algernon @imcdowall @petrillic EUPL is an odd license, because it has strong copyleft requirements like that and then a relicensing clause which just allows you to relicense to a weaker copyleft license (like GPLv2-only, GPLv3-only, or even any version of the GNU GPL via CeCILL v2 (because it allows relicensing to CeCILL v2 which itself allows relicensing to any version of the GNU GPL)) and bypass those requirements entirely.
I’d just use the AGPL. What is actually wrong with it anyway?
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tracing::trace!("algernon was here");
algernon@come-from.mad-scientist.club@noisytoot @petrillic @imcdowall You have to jump through a bunch of hoops to do the relicensing dance, though. BigTech won't do that1, and it's too cumbersome for others to do it. So while that part is a bit odd, it's not a factor in my threat model at least.
As for the AGPL: GNU & RMS ties. I don't want to use a license with GNU or RMS ties. The EUPL is simpler, was developed by the EU, so I bloody well hope it would stand up in (European) court. I like those properties.
They'll either ignore the software because copyleft, or steal it anyway, and don't bother with licensing. ↩︎
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