This seems well intentioned but poorly thought out. Also, software distributed under this license does not qualify as free software under the GNU _or_ OSI models.
> License Zero is based on the two-clause BSD License, a classic permissive Open Source license, with two key additions:
> Commercial use is limited to 90 days
Which makes it seem like this is Open Source when it isn't.
> According to The Open Source Definition, discriminating against commerce and non-contributors is not “Open Source”. The Definition also prohibits discrimination against “fields of endeavor”, like commerce, and persons and groups, like non-contributors. That means License Zero is no longer an Open Source license, even if it remains remarkably generous, a public gift to charitable organizations, students, teachers, academics, and hobbyists everywhere.
L0-NC derives from BSD-2-Clause to make transition back to OSD-conformant terms very clear.
If you want to position L0 as a way for commercial software vendors to distribute source, that's fine. But I strongly object to the implication that it's just a "patch" on top of existing open source licenses.
Legal terms aren't exactly like computer code, but the analogy works here. Unmodified BSD-2-Clause meets OSI's "test suite", the Open Source Definition, and FSF's test suite, "What is free software?". Patched, L0-NC fails both test suites. Passing isn't about provenance of the "raw material". It's about what the terms do.
The reason I did that, even though I could easily write a more modern and approachable permissive license than BSD-2-Clause, which is almost as old as I am, was to make automatic reversion back to open source terms very clear. The "patch" touches the header notice, and adds a third condition. The automatic waiver removes the new, third condition. That means BSD-2-Clause and some extra stuff in notice are left.
- There's already been extensive discussion on this shared source license on Twitter in the last 24 hours.
- The author keeps saying 'OSD compliant' rather than 'Open Source' as if there's another definition of Open Source other than the OSD. There isn't.
There is also a difference between OSD conformance and OSI approval. That's been made very clear in the license-review thread for the License Zero Reciprocal Public License of late, and in many private conversations besides.
The License Zero Noncommercial Public License was never meant to be "Open Source" as defined by OSI. It may be "open source" as developers use that term today. If the latter, I'm not sure _I'm_ happy about that.
The reciprocal public license will be OSD-conformant. OSI may or may not approve it, on policy grounds. FSF may or may not opine that it's a Free Software license, or an ethical license. It may or may not be "open source" as developers use and understand that term today, or tomorrow.
All of these brands, labels, categories, and border disputes matter so, so much less than the real, underlying problems in lining up support and compensation with contribution in software. If by breaking or smudging these categories, L0 creates a clearer line of sight through to those problems, I think that's great!
Sure, but those devs know that 'MIT' and 'GPL' and 'BSD' are Open Source, and that being able to license the source code for eg, Windows, doesn't make Windows Open Source.
Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article.
The FSF Free Software and OSI Open Source definitions are the products of significant consideration of the logical impacts and experience of the practical impacts of software licensing (the former more heavily on the abstract, the latter on he practical, but interestingly they end up essentially identical.)
As such, deviations from those models that assert that they are both retaining the benefits and curing problems inherent to the models, while certainly not implausible, do call for careful examination.
So that leaves you with adaption by unwashed unorganised masses who wouldn’t care about licence terms at all.