Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Potential of the Sleepycat License

[Bob Jonkman]

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So, to play devil's advocate: The new licence provides all the same
freedoms to the user as xGPL licenses, and gives the developer the
additional freedom to choose any other license that must also give
users and developers the same freedoms as an xGPL license. But if that
other license must provide the same freedoms as xGPL then it's
essentially a duplicate of xGPL, so the developer might as well choose
the xGPL in the first place since that gives the same freedoms.

- --Bob.

On 2017-04-16 05:11 AM, Nicolás A. Ortega wrote:
> The Sleepycat license would be useful for a library because unlike
> the GPL (or AGPL) it doesn't force the user of said library
> (developing a program that links to the library) to use the same
> license, but unlike the LGPL it forces the user to at least
> disclose source code. I'm saying that with a slight improvement of
> the license we could create one that doesn't only require source
> code disclosure, but also that it be completely free. However, I am
> still reading through another e-mail in this thread that says it
> may not be a good idea to make such a derivative, which I'll have
> to look through since I really don't know much about the legal
> world.
> 
> In general, it's about saying that the user can use my library and
> even choose their license for their project, but that license must
> be a free software license (any of them). That's the general idea
> of what I see in this license.
> 
> On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 09:38:41PM -0400, Bob Jonkman wrote: What
> does the Sleepycat license gain the user that isn't covered by GPL
> or LPGL?
> 
> All four freedoms are already covered by the xGPL licences, I
> myself can't think of anything more a user needs to maintain zem's
> freedoms.
> 
> Certainly there are developers who think they need more freedoms 
> (including being allowed to use code without exposing source, or
> using someone else's code without attribution, or using code
> without propagating the xGPL), but to me those aren't compelling
> reasons to switch away from xGPL.
> 
> --Bob.
> 
> 
> On 2017-04-15 05:55 AM, Nicolás A. Ortega wrote:
>>>> I've tried having this discussion on #fsf and #gnu, and I
>>>> think that this license has the potential to be a great
>>>> software license, especially for libraries.
>>>> 
>>>> To my understanding the Sleepycat License[0] is a copyleft
>>>> license in which all derivatives of the work must be licensed
>>>> likewise (under the Sleepycat license) and works that use a
>>>> project under this license must disclose source code.
>>>> 
>>>> There are, however a couple problems with this license, the
>>>> first one (as you most likely have noticed while reading the
>>>> above) is that disclosure of source code does not mean free
>>>> software, and secondly is the issue that the license uses
>>>> very specific terminology referring to the BerkleyDB (the
>>>> software that uses this license) and refers mostly to DB
>>>> software. Given, disclosure of source code is better (imo)
>>>> than the LGPL since it forces the disclosure of the sources
>>>> (while LGPL only does so in the case of static linking if
>>>> there is no exception), and still gives more freedom for the
>>>> programmer to choose a license unlike one of the GPL licenses
>>>> (despite how much I love them).
>>>> 
>>>> However, if we can find people with the knowledge to
>>>> write/modify licenses ('cause I for sure will not be able to
>>>> do that) then I think that this license could be modified to
>>>> fix those two problems (for example, instead of requiring
>>>> that code be disclosed, all 4 freedoms could be required).
>>>> 
>>>> I am not an expert in licensing, which is why I brought this
>>>> up here. Hopefully someone here has the ability, time, and
>>>> will to do this (if it is possible). (^_^)
>>>> 
>>>> [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepycat_license
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
>>>> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 
>>>> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
>>>>
>
>>>> 
>> 
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>> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 
>> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
>
>> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss
> mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 
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> 

- -- 


Bob Jonkman <bjonkman@sobac.com>          Phone: +1-519-635-9413
SOBAC Microcomputer Services             http://sobac.com/sobac/
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