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Deleted Apache 2.0-style upstream indemnification compatibility clause.

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GNU GPLv3 7f was added as a principled, nominally-license-neutral
effort to achieve Apache License 2.0 compatibility (following the
"discovery" that the upstream indemnification clause of the Apache
License 2.0 could not be considered GPL-compatible based on any
distillation of principle from FSF interpretive tradition).

I now believe the more sensible approach, where a principled basis for
GPL compatibility is in serious doubt based on interpretive tradition,
is simply to designate privileged licenses and state that they are
deemed compatible.

This of course has the effect of rewarding relatively powerful or
influential organzations/communities associated with the privileged
licenses, which may be problematic. But this was the political reality
behind the effort to create a principled formal basis for Apache 2.0
license compatibility in GNU GPLv3 anyway.

This change is also motivated by concerns that GNU GPLv3 7f could have
undesirable unintended consequences, though admittedly I have not
encountered any in the past 5 years. There is continuing uncertainty
(in my mind at least) over the degree to which indemnification clauses
are consistent with normative understandings of free software, which
supports the approach I am suggesting here.

This change also has the effect of treating licenses very similar to
the Apache License 2.0 differently from the Apache License 2.0. This
can be justified on the basis of prevailing FLOSS policies against
"license proliferation".

With this change, the Apache License 2.0 is incompatible with
GPL.next, but further changes will fix that.
This commit is contained in:
Richard Fontana 2012-07-07 01:37:41 -04:00
parent e97c5c3766
commit 285684048a
1 changed files with 0 additions and 6 deletions
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GPL.next
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@ -289,12 +289,6 @@ that material) supplement the terms of this License with terms:
e) Declining to grant rights under trademark law for use of some
trade names, trademarks, or service marks; or
f) Requiring indemnification of licensors and authors of that
material by anyone who distributes the material (or modified versions of
it) with contractual assumptions of liability to the recipient, for
any liability that these contractual assumptions directly impose on
those licensors and authors.
All other non-permissive additional terms are considered "further
restrictions" within the meaning of section 10. If the Program as You
received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is