BSD total reached

[Mark Tarver]

We've made the total of £2500 and Shen will go to BSD.  I'd like to thank those people who have given.

What happens next is that the web site will be updated and Shen will be upgraded to Shen 17. In detail

*  the link to the public wiki will go on the index page and all the main pages of the site.  

*  a number of bugs reported by Bruno over Xmas will be fixed; there are a few changes I need to make

*  the source->KL program will be upgraded to work with the current Shen and made publicly usable

*  a form based submission to the standard library will be created

*  the license goes to BSD

This will take about two weeks and in meantime the current license still applies;  so sit tight while these changes are made.

As most of you probably know, The original target was £8500 and this would have funded much additional development work on Shen beyond the BSD.   So further development work by me beyond the spec will be funded on a per basis.  For myself,  I'm using the time and money to develop my online teaching presence.  A number of loyal subscribers are paying monthly donations and I'd like to thank them because this pays for moderation (= spam protection really,  I pass nearly everything) and maintenance of the Shen source and site.  I'm looking for more substantial ways to reward them other than thanks.

So for the rest of Shenturians, a Happy New Year and here's to 2015.

Mark

[Michael Bradley, Jr.]

That's great news!

Have you given any thought to which variant of the BSD license you're going to adopt?  The 2-clause version, sans disclaimer, seems to be the default choice for new adopters (based on my observations).


    http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses#2-clause_license_.28.22Simplified_BSD_License.22_or_.22FreeBSD_License.22.29


Best regards,

--
Michael Bradley
@michaelsbradley

[tycho luyben]

Fantastic news! Great news about the source->KL as well. Thanks for all! Besides writing books (which are actually not online) , what online teaching presence 

are you referring to? 

[Mark Tarver]

Online teaching at a virtual university; actually outside of computing altogether; so probably not of general interest here.

No problems with source->KL.

Mark

[Mark Tarver]

Still thinking on it.

Mark

[Mark Tarver]

I doubt it will be the 2 clause because 

* Neither the name of the <organization> nor the
      names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
      derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

is a clause I agree with.

Mark

On Monday, January 5, 2015 9:18:42 PM UTC, Michael Bradley, Jr. wrote:

[Michael Bradley, Jr.]

On Jan 8, 2015, at 08:21, Mark Tarver <dr.mt...@gmail.com> wrote:

I doubt it will be the 2 clause because 

* Neither the name of the <organization> nor the
      names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
      derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

is a clause I agree with.

Mark

I agree with it as well, 100%.  However,  in many countries protection against unauthorized endorsement is (automatically) provided by trademark law, not copyright law, making the clause a legal “no op”.  That’s why the 3-clause license was simplified to a 2-clause license, based on my research. In other words, if you’re aiming for clarity and simplicity in a legal document that pertains to copyright law, why include terms that don’t readily apply to that body of law?

Regarding the 4-clause variant, I would like to suggest that it not be used. The OSI has not approved it as an open source license (the OSI states that fact on their website), the FSF states that it is incompatible with the GPL, and the various BSD OS projects moved away from it 15+ years ago.  I realize you may feel differently, and that you have some concerns regarding the open source movement, but if the goal of the Shen pledge drive was, in some sense, to allow Shen to swim more freely with other open source projects, then I would be disappointed to see it adopt an anachronistic variant of the BSD license.  You may not be considering the 4-clause variant, in which case please kindly disregard this paragraph.

If one is looking to cover a lot of legal bases, another option would be to consider the Apache License 2.0.  In 2012, the Rust Language project (by Mozilla) switched to non-copyleft dual-licensing under the Apache 2.0 and MIT licenses. The MIT license is nearly identical with the 2-clause BSD license, and they could just as well have dual-licensed with the latter rather than the former.  The rationale for choosing Apache 2.0 is that it covers a lot of legal bases, including patent grants.  The reason for not going exclusively with Apache 2.0 is that it is incompatible with GPLv2 (but not v3). By giving users the option to use it and/or license derivatives under either the Apache 2.0 or MIT licenses, they’ve achieved very wide license-compatibility with downstream projects.  On the other hand, code contributed to the project is required to be under the same dual-license, and therefore subject to the protections regarding patents, etc.  Note that Apache 2.0 doesn’t contain clauses related to endorsement or promotion, but does include a clause (#6) stating that the license does not grant any permissions with respect to trademarks (and related) of the licensor.

Best regards,

--

Michael Bradley, Jr.

@michaelsbradley

[Mark Tarver]

I've decided to go for the 3 clause version - from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses#3-clause_license_.28.22Revised_BSD_License.22.2C_.22New_BSD_License.22.2C_or_.22Modified_BSD_License.22.29

This version has been vetted as an Open source license by the OSI as "The BSD License"  ... created "on 22 July 1999 by William Hoskins, Director of the Office of Technology Licensing for UC Berkeley"

Mark

[Michael Bradley, Jr.]

On Friday, January 9, 2015 at 8:04:14 AM UTC-6, Mark Tarver wrote:

I've decided to go for the 3 clause version - from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses#3-clause_license_.28.22Revised_BSD_License.22.2C_.22New_BSD_License.22.2C_or_.22Modified_BSD_License.22.29

This version has been vetted as an Open source license by the OSI as "The BSD License"  ... created "on 22 July 1999 by William Hoskins, Director of the Office of Technology Licensing for UC Berkeley"

Mark

I personally feel the 3-clause version is a fine choice, thank you for sharing your decision. I apologize if I gave the impression that there is something wrong with it or that it isn't OSI approved. In my previous post on this thread, I merely wished to explain the motivation for the 2-clause version, and to caution against the 4-clause version.

[Mark Tarver]

No offence taken at all.  I chose 3 clause because the 3rd clause gives cover in all countries.  I agree that the 4 clause is too cumbersome these days.

Mark