Hi,
After thinking a while I came to the conclusion that the Collaborative Virtual Workspace License (CVW) http://cvw.mitre.org/cvw/licenses/source/license.html is not a Free Software license for the following reason.
General (5) "In either case, if you transmit source code improvements or modifications to MITRE, you agree to assign to MITRE copyright to such improvements or modifications, which MITRE will then make available from MITRE's web site."
This sentence allows the following scenario:
- you make modifications - you assign copyright to MITRE - MITRE releases your modifications under a non free software license and publish them on their web site - you are not allowed to use your own code - you have to remove your own modifications from your machine
I know this is unlikely but it's permitted by the license. Therefore the freedom to modify the software is crippled, hence the license is not Free Software.
Do you see any flaw in this logic ?
Loic Dachary wrote:
After thinking a while I came to the conclusion that the Collaborative Virtual Workspace License (CVW) http://cvw.mitre.org/cvw/licenses/source/license.html is not a Free Software license for the following reason. [...]
I agree with your logic.
It is my impression that this is just an unfortunate wording and that MITRE in fact intends to write an MPL-style Free Software license. IMHO it makes sense to talk to them.
Peter
On Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 06:38:16PM +0200, Loic Dachary wrote:
After thinking a while I came to the conclusion that the Collaborative Virtual Workspace License (CVW) http://cvw.mitre.org/cvw/licenses/source/license.html is not a Free Software license for the following reason.
General (5) "In either case, if you transmit source code improvements or modifications to MITRE, you agree to assign to MITRE copyright to such improvements or modifications, which MITRE will then make available from MITRE's web site."
This sentence allows the following scenario:
- you make modifications
- you assign copyright to MITRE
- MITRE releases your modifications under a non free software license and publish them on their web site
- you are not allowed to use your own code
- you have to remove your own modifications from your machine
I know this is unlikely but it's permitted by the license. Therefore the freedom to modify the software is crippled, hence the license is not Free Software.
Do you see any flaw in this logic ?
Depending on the usual local interpretation of the clause you have quoted it could mean that they want a non-exclusive right to copy and sublicense the source code. This would break your chain of reason.
I wanted to recheck the rest of the license, but found the URL dead. The only information about the license for CVW I can find on the new webpage is that it is in the Public Domain now and thus Free Software. Strange...
... | So in order to accommodate everyone equally, we felt the best means | to accomplish the transfer of CVW is by ceding the software to the | public domain. This was felt to be the solution most in line with | our role as a public interest company. ...
| Last update: 12 February 2001 | | This work, including the source code, documentation and related | data, is placed into the public domain. | The original author is The MITRE Corporation.
The URL is active, but it seems that CVW indeed was moved to sourceforge and released into the public domain, as most of the site displays a message about the move. Bernhard
On Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 04:44:22PM +0200, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
On Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 06:38:16PM +0200, Loic Dachary wrote:
I wanted to recheck the rest of the license, but found the URL dead. The only information about the license for CVW I can find on the new webpage is that it is in the Public Domain now and thus Free Software. Strange...
... | So in order to accommodate everyone equally, we felt the best means | to accomplish the transfer of CVW is by ceding the software to the | public domain. This was felt to be the solution most in line with | our role as a public interest company. ...
| Last update: 12 February 2001 | | This work, including the source code, documentation and related | data, is placed into the public domain. | The original author is The MITRE Corporation.
On 18 Aug 2001 18:38:16 +0200, Loic Dachary wrote:
This sentence allows the following scenario:
- you make modifications
- you assign copyright to MITRE
- MITRE releases your modifications under a non free software license and publish them on their web site
- you are not allowed to use your own code
- you have to remove your own modifications from your machine
I know this is unlikely but it's permitted by the license. Therefore the freedom to modify the software is crippled, hence the license is not Free Software.
Do you see any flaw in this logic ?
The license is free software, just like the BSD license (without the advertising clause). What it does not do is to enforce that the future versions of the software will stay free software, but neither does GPL. If the FSF ever is taken over all the GNU project could be transformed into proprietary software because the GNU project has a similar clause: all the software must have its copyright assigned to the FSF.
João Miguel Neves joao@silvaneves.org writes:
If the FSF ever is taken over all the GNU project could be transformed into proprietary software because the GNU project has a similar clause: all the software must have its copyright assigned to the FSF.
I'm afraid this is incorrect in several ways. First of all, the copyright assignment signed by many developers for software which are part of the GNU Project, guarantees the developer that future releases of the software made by the FSF shall be released as free software.
Second, the inclusion of a program as part of the GNU Project does not necessarily mean that the copyright must be assigned to the FSF. This is a different issue and one that is decided upon in a discussion between the FSF and the author(s) of the software.
João Miguel Neves wrote:
On 18 Aug 2001 18:38:16 +0200, Loic Dachary wrote:
This sentence allows the following scenario:
- you make modifications
- you assign copyright to MITRE
- MITRE releases your modifications under a non free software license and publish them on their web site
- you are not allowed to use your own code
- you have to remove your own modifications from your machine
I know this is unlikely but it's permitted by the license. Therefore the freedom to modify the software is crippled, hence the license is not Free Software.
Do you see any flaw in this logic ?
The license is free software, just like the BSD license (without the advertising clause). What it does not do is to enforce that the future versions of the software will stay free software, but neither does GPL. If the FSF ever is taken over all the GNU project could be transformed into proprietary software because the GNU project has a similar clause: all the software must have its copyright assigned to the FSF.
This is not really true. * It's not true that all GNU projects _must_ have copyright assigned to FSF. However, you are asked to do so, and it's a good choice to do so if you want your software to be incorporated into the official GNU system. * You may make modifications on GPL'ed software without assigning copyright of your modifications to anybody, as long as your modifications are not part of the main development thread. * When you assign copyright to the FSF, the FSF guarantees that the FSF will distribute the software only under licenses that permit free redistribution (paragraph 4 of the usual contract). So even in the case of a "takeover" your software can't be made proprietary. * Apart from that, even when you assign copyright to the FSF you are granted back "non-exclusive, royalty-free and non-cancellable rights to use the Works as you see fit".
At least this is my understanding.
Thanks,