[HN Gopher] Tgppl, a radically new type of open-source license
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Tgppl, a radically new type of open-source license
Author : erwan
Score : 28 points
Date : 2020-09-06 19:45 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (electriccoin.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (electriccoin.co)
| Animats wrote:
| _"Congress shall have power... to promote the progress of science
| and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and
| inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and
| discoveries."_
|
| Depends on the time limit. US copyright was once 23 years, now
| it's, 95-120 years in the US. If this is for 1 year, well, maybe.
| If it's for 10 years, no.
|
| And can it be "evergreened", with the time limit running out 1
| year after the most recent change? (See MPEG-LA for how to do
| that.)
| kaszanka wrote:
| This is just more license proliferation and a solution to a
| nonexistent problem. Releasing software under a license like the
| GPL doesn't somehow prevent you from making money from it. See
| Ardour - GPLv2, paid binaries.
| duckerude wrote:
| It doesn't entirely prevent you from making money, but it can
| make it harder.
|
| Even the FSF acknowledges this. See for example "Proprietary
| software developers have the advantage of money" on
| https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| ... and collecting US$17-20k per month (post COVID19 expansion,
| or was it just version 6.0?)
| detaro wrote:
| One example of a project working with existing licenses doesn't
| mean that there isn't a problem. And they don't claim that it
| entirely "prevent[s] you from making money from it". (Although
| I'm not convinced this license is a good solution, need to take
| a deeper look)
| [deleted]
| linkdd wrote:
| Reminds me of Sentry's model:
| https://blog.sentry.io/2019/11/06/relicensing-sentry
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Well I'm skeptical, but at least unlike 99% of "radically new
| type of open-source license[s]" I _think_ this one is actually, y
| 'know, an open source license and not shared source pretending
| otherwise. If I'm reading "External Deployment" correctly, it's
| sorta like AGPL but with a time delay, which is... Not terrible,
| really.
| nsajko wrote:
| This (under the same name and version 1.0) has already been
| presented to FSF and OSI in the 2000s and 2010 on their mailing
| lists and other places, so I guess it didn't get approval. Since
| it thus isn't an open-source license, why present it as such in
| article title - starting out dishonest is probably not a good
| idea.
|
| If I'm wrong and it is approved by OSI, that info should probably
| be more prominent in the blog post.
|
| EDIT: indeed, both the 2008 mailing list post and this blog post
| call it "Transitive Grace Period Public Licence v. 1.0".
|
| EDIT2: to be more constructive, a more proper way to describe the
| license could perhaps be "open-source-like".
|
| EDIT3: framing this as an issue of honesty was a mistake, because
| Zooko or whoever can hold whatever opinion they like. It is a big
| issue anyways, see downthread if not convinced.
| geofft wrote:
| There's a number of other reasons the OSI doesn't approve
| licenses, such as avoiding license proliferation
| https://opensource.org/proliferation . As a simple example,
| there are a huge number of variants of the 4-clause BSD
| licenses where the advertising clause lists more and more
| people besides the University of California; they're all open-
| source licenses under the Open Source Definition, but the OSI
| isn't interested in promoting them, because including all of
| those advertising clauses is a pain.
|
| I think this post is not claiming that the license is (yet)
| approved by OSI, but it is claiming that it's an open source
| license under the OSD.
| nsajko wrote:
| Still, the claim of "open source" or "libre" or "free
| software" doesn't hold water effectively if there is nobody
| to verify it (lawyers are probably needed, too). License
| proliferation is a separate issue.
|
| BTW, the OSI people on their mailing list weren't convinced
| that the license is conformant (during the grace period) in
| 2008, 2009, or 2013. Hypothetically there could have been a
| change of heart since, but I can't know either way without
| much more research.
|
| My main point is that there is a lack of transparency in the
| linked blog post about the license by ECC (Zooko?).
|
| EDIT: If someone wants to choose this (or any other) license,
| it is important for them to know if it is legally sound, how
| compatible it is with other licenses/project, and possibly
| also what are the prospects for the license's future adoption
| in the "market". Approval by FSF or OSI gives some assurance
| with all of those. Without that everyone involved with
| software licensed under the license will just lose time,
| unless hypothetically TGPPL makes it really big, big enough
| for everyone to switch from FSF and OSI approved licenses to
| TGPPL.
| ksec wrote:
| >Radically...
|
| I vaguely remember reading a similar Open Source License, but
| couldn't google it.
|
| And it reads very AGPL like. Which may be a big no no for many
| Cooperation and Enterprise. And what if the Author Set a Grace
| Period of 50 years or longer?
|
| It feels to me a solution looking for problem.
| jancsika wrote:
| I've never understood why there isn't a dev framework to allow
| users to "unlock" certain FOSS features.
|
| E.g., you scroll through a list of already implemented/tested
| features that are stored somewhere that isn't publicly
| accessible, perhaps with demo videos if it's UI stuff. Each one
| is priced. If someone pays the price, then the source for the
| feature gets automerged (if possible) and ships with the next
| version of the software.
|
| If it's served by the same maintainers who run the project then
| there's no trust issues with it.
| StavrosK wrote:
| Can someone better-versed in legalese explain how this works?
| What is the restriction before the 12 months (and what happens
| after that?). Say I make money from the code, what about the
| contributors? Do they contribute code and get nothing for it, or
| am I supposed to pay them a cut?
| samfisher83 wrote:
| This license sort of sounds like a patent. The creators get to
| make some money for a little while and then it gives everyone
| access to the software.
| onei wrote:
| That was my impression too. However, where a patent expires, I
| couldn't see when the source code had to be released by. Seems
| a bit problematic if that is the case. I also don't see a
| substantial difference to just releasing the source code at a
| later date under a open source license when the copyright
| holder chooses to.
| wnbc wrote:
| Yes, I think that's the objective for the licence. Reading
| slightly more into the product (Halo 2), they would benefit
| from more adoption by others as it could facilitate cross-chain
| interoperation.
|
| The license model gives everyone equal access to the code, and
| equal rights to improve Halo commercially (make money?) with
| the promise that they subsequently open-source their
| improvements after 12 months.
|
| This license model fits this product quite well.
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