[OpenLayers-Dev] MOTION: simplified license

[Eric Lemoine]

On Tuesday, May 10, 2011, Tim Schaub <tschaub at opengeo.org> wrote:
> On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 10:01 AM, Eric Lemoine
> <eric.lemoine at camptocamp.com> wrote:
>> On Tuesday, May 10, 2011, Tim Schaub <tschaub at opengeo.org> wrote:
>>> Hey-
>>>
>>> We've had discussions previously about adopting a license that has
>>> more widespread use than our modified BSD license.  The motivation for
>>> making a change is increase the likelihood that others can use
>>> OpenLayers without having to direct specific licensing questions to a
>>> very small pool of people (perhaps a pool of one).
>>>
>>> The 2-clause BSD, referred to as "Simplified BSD License" or "FreeBSD
>>> License" looks good to me
>>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses#2-clause).
>>>
>>> This license differs from our current license
>>> (http://svn.openlayers.org/trunk/openlayers/license.txt) in a number
>>> of ways:
>>>
>>> 1) The 2-clause license omits the non-endorsement clause.  Our current
>>> license says that nobody can use the OpenLayers name to endorse
>>> products that use OpenLayers without specific written permission.  To
>>> my knowledge, we have given specific written permission once.  There
>>> are enough other uses of the OpenLayers name in promoting software
>>> that uses OpenLayers that I think we are not going to enforce this
>>> non-endorsement clause.
>>>
>>> 2) The 2-clause license doesn't contain any language about patent
>>> rights.  Our current language about patent rights is not included in
>>> other common forms of the BSD (OpenLayers and FeatureServer are the
>>> two uses I could quickly find).  Removing this specific language would
>>> align our license with licenses used by many other projects - reducing
>>> the chance of licensing questions that are specific to our project.
>>>
>>> I'm open to hearing proposals to use another license.
>>>
>>> I'm +1 on changing to the 2-clause BSD.
>>
>> Tim, I'm just concerned about this regarding the 2-clause BSD:
>>
>> "The Free Software Foundation, which refers to the license as the
>> FreeBSD License, states that it is compatible with the GNU GPL."
>>
>> (extracted from the wikipedia page)
>
> Please elaborate on this.  It says the FSF thinks the 2-clause BSD is
> compatible with the GPL.  I don't see a negative there.

Sorry Tim. I was confused. +1 from me.

-- 
Eric Lemoine

Camptocamp France SAS
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