1From - Wed Oct 17 13:27:51 2018 2X-Account-Key: account1 3X-UIDL: GmailId166832be205bc2bd 4X-Mozilla-Status: 1013 5X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 6X-Mozilla-Keys: 7Delivered-To: rob@landley.net 8Received: by 2002:ab0:208c:0:0:0:0:0 with SMTP id r12csp943206uak; 9 Wed, 17 Oct 2018 10:56:23 -0700 (PDT) 10X-Google-Smtp-Source: ACcGV61EHdCAKXqiC2g4VHKVIL9kgr4swWkJtL9r6jorwOeN6QWG09j9dd8vuBA2AqOxUrypnI88 11X-Received: by 2002:a17:902:16a4:: with SMTP id h33-v6mr26279849plh.3.1539798983448; 12 Wed, 17 Oct 2018 10:56:23 -0700 (PDT) 13ARC-Seal: i=1; a=rsa-sha256; t=1539798983; cv=none; 14 d=google.com; s=arc-20160816; 15 b=E/rO76Tc0QzdNYVqa3mOrkhv21WxRyex6QvEcEw2ejkTXu3csi2hFDckupiXuJyBYi 16 zXk7prvMPwpP229CvoeWCl723QCCDRFU0b1S/1Z7gD9I3gk/t6Vnp0U1pJ/oFhUaExlJ 17 l2/HwgzW0eVnMQsJHKlzP8zNqJhOUFD+xI35NiRa9J1tH0BomncWOz7lTXlvaTED2Vdz 18 ZHoFuv89BUKCkKGbfm4/O0KTNECK6rK1Db87M/rGCpUQpCQacVr29Lf3AWLQikDR62dB 19 vCqIMCD3mvRcPPOo8VIN/xyQQ9J4OcBZ/jZ/zfxcbZc11fng8GNHlp33hCxuyKHUwbeT 20 nOmw== 21ARC-Message-Signature: i=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=google.com; s=arc-20160816; 22 h=date:content-transfer-encoding:content-id:mime-version:comments 23 :in-reply-to:reply-to:subject:to:from:message-id; 24 bh=HpIGga40Wz3PXDOHP7PrAJqWHlOoA7xl5QvPk2tjJig=; 25 b=JdV87WgS3oz/oa3fJSLdgU42ag+CKECK7OuT/DLvHfmwc2XtIMkx99zexEOi3S8DJp 26 eaxLjf70GfCzWyq2fP11rUjemnTxW9R9efZEkZanvq36rbj7A+3/NmzvYPLwm8bihlke 27 Gu8/FoVrE8ZANi252MKvejMVYsrYsyEJnO/vmiteVR5wD8mwHtYQnDXmwta6ZhH/ko+t 28 uWXkHxOxs6y21CElD+40BvkIGGwFNd4FptjTA1T0rgw0PTUB/igdKvvwk1LotqbERJv5 29 nhNHc47pJ4EU2o7G4yAwBBVETXQYYc8rl259VCKiSuGy0hEKGKweVieTEAe8V+NrZzd2 30 UV7A== 31ARC-Authentication-Results: i=1; mx.google.com; 32 spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of mckusick@mckusick.com designates 70.36.157.235 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=mckusick@mckusick.com 33Return-Path: <mckusick@mckusick.com> 34Received: from chez.mckusick.com (chez.mckusick.com. [70.36.157.235]) 35 by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 129-v6si18906639pfd.201.2018.10.17.10.56.23 36 for <rob@landley.net> 37 (version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); 38 Wed, 17 Oct 2018 10:56:23 -0700 (PDT) 39Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of mckusick@mckusick.com designates 70.36.157.235 as permitted sender) client-ip=70.36.157.235; 40Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; 41 spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of mckusick@mckusick.com designates 70.36.157.235 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=mckusick@mckusick.com 42Received: from chez.mckusick.com (localhost [IPv6:::1]) 43 by chez.mckusick.com (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTP id w9HI1egQ039009 44 for <rob@landley.net>; Wed, 17 Oct 2018 11:01:40 -0700 (PDT) 45 (envelope-from mckusick@mckusick.com) 46Message-Id: <201810171801.w9HI1egQ039009@chez.mckusick.com> 47From: Kirk McKusick <mckusick@mckusick.com> 48To: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> 49Subject: Re: License naming question. 50X-URL: http://WWW.McKusick.COM/ 51Reply-To: Kirk McKusick <mckusick@mckusick.com> 52In-reply-to: <9bf40da7-afb3-d3d6-3759-d1566c99aa20@landley.net> 53Comments: In-reply-to Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> 54 message dated "Tue, 16 Oct 2018 17:57:10 -0500." 55MIME-Version: 1.0 56Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" 57Content-ID: <39007.1539799300.1@chez.mckusick.com> 58Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable 59Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 11:01:40 -0700 60X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MISSING_MID, 61 UNPARSEABLE_RELAY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.1 62X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.1 (2015-04-28) on chez.mckusick.com 63 64> To: mckusick@mckusick.com 65> From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> 66> Subject: License naming question. 67> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2018 17:57:10 -0500 68> = 69 70> Hi, 71> = 72 73> We spoke at Ohio Linuxfest back in 2013 (you attended my Rise and 74> Fall of Copyleft talk, and then we talked in the hallway afterwards). 75> = 76 77> I _think_ I told you about my plans to try to promote public domain 78> equivalent licensing, a concept which has a wikipedia page now: 79> = 80 81> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_equivalent_license 82> = 83 84> For toybox what I did was take the OpenBSD suggested template license 85> off their website and remove the half-sentence requiring people to 86> copy that specific license text into derived works, and the resulting 87> license made it past Google's lawyers! My toybox project has been 88> providing the command line for android since Marshmallow 89> (https://lwn.net/Articles/629362/) and we're making progress on 90> getting android to build under android, the Bionic libc maintainer 91> recently sent me a roadmap update about that: 92> = 93 94> https://github.com/landley/toybox/commit/92b359f00057 95> = 96 97> I called the resulting license "Zero Clause BSD" (by analogy with 98> "Creative Commons Zero" and the existing 4 clause, 3 clause, and 2 99> clause BSD licenses), and I even got SPDX approval for it in 2015 100> (because Samsung asked me to shortly after Google merged it into 101> AOSP, they'd been adding it aftermarket before then and having an 102> SPDX identifier for the license simplified their internal bureaucracy). 103> = 104 105> Then a couple months after SPDX approved it, somebody _else_ submitted 106> the same license to Eric Raymond's old Open Source Initiative using 107> "Free" in the name, as in Free Software Foundation. (A sadly loaded 108> term these days.) 109> = 110 111> I hadn't known they were still in the license approval business 112> (they stopped approving new licenses in... 2012? And I remember 113> them explicitly _rejecting_ CC0 saying public domain isn't a license, 114> which their FAQ still talks about at 115> https://opensource.org/faq#public-domain). But they approved the 116> toybox license under a different name, then asked SPDX to retroactively 117> change their name for it. (SPDX didn't, but OSI refused to admit 118> it made a mistake, even though they said they had a policy to keep 119> the names in sync. They hadn't done their homework.) 120> = 121 122> Now every time the license is considered for a new use, the confusion 123> OSI caused tends to derail things: 124> = 125 126> https://github.com/david-a-wheeler/spdx-tutorial/issues/1 127> = 128 129> When github itself was considering adding 0BSD to its license 130> pulldown (which would have been a big win), I was asked what I 131> thought of the naming confusion, and I wrote two long things on my 132> rationale with lots of links to earlier stuff, which you can read 133> here if you'd like: 134> = 135 136> https://github.com/github/choosealicense.com/issues/464 137> = 138 139> Anyway, I recently decided to ask OSI to admit they made a mistake 140> and change their name for the license to match what SPDX did, and 141> there was unanimous approval... 142> = 143 144> http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.or= 145g/2018-September/003519.html 146> = 147 148> Until the same guy who was objecting last time showed up to continue 149> to object. He ignord the "who used it first" axis, and said he 150> wanted to know which name was used more today, and then when he 151> lost that argument he said he objects to calling something a BSD 152> license that isn't using Berkeley's original wording. 153> = 154 155> My question is: do you object to the name "Zero Clause BSD" for a 156> public domain equivalent license that's the OpenBSD suggested 157> template license with half a sentence removed? 158> = 159 160> If you want to stay out of this, I understand. I'm pretty sure I 161> asked you this in 2013 before I started pushing the name, and 162> wouldn't have if you'd objected then, but that was long ago and the 163> water under the bridge is dead... 164> = 165 166> Thanks for your time, sorry that took so long to explain. (And even 167> longer if you read the big long github choosealicense thread. :) 168> = 169 170> Rob 171 172Thanks for the through explanation of the situation. 173 174I have no objections to the name "Zero Clause BSD" for your license. 175 176I hope that you are successful in getting OSI to change their name 177for the license to match what SPDX did. 178 179 Kirk McKusick 180 181