The MPL 2.0-influenced GPL compatibility provision of section 3
arguably is problematic because it can be read as clashing with the
GPL's copyleft requirement to license the "entire" modified work under
the GPL. I believe the conflict is illusory because one cannot grant a
copyright license covering what one does not hold copyright
on. Nevertheless, having looked at this provision with fresh eyes, I
can foresee it being criticized. The change makes the provision more
like a typical relicensing clause in licenses that aim at outbound GPL
compatibility.
The latter part of section 4 is meant to cover the inbound license
compatibility problem, but the existing version is not clearly
inapplicable to the situation where one is combining copyleft-next
code with GPL code. I believe the change made here is useful as it
does not cover the case where you would have noncompliance with the
other license (as for example in a GPL|copyleft-next combination
scenario, if you ignore the existence of the latter part of section
3).
'Pertinent' in notice preservation provision is removed; Adam argues
this limitation could encourage noncompliance.
Add statutory damages to LoL provision.
Clarify exception to the source URL requirement in cases where
Products include Corresponding Source.
Get rid of definition of legal entity in 'I'/'You' definition. Adam
argues: "This makes it easier and cheaper to bring corporate entities
into compliance with copyleft-next; enforcement through litigation
won't need to delve as deeply into proving how an the infringing
corporate body is governed." I'm not sure I agree with that, but it's
fairly clear now that the absence of a legal entity definition in
GPLv2 and GPLv3 has not itself had any effect on corporate adoption of
or compliance with those licenses.
The idea that there is some affirmative requirement to give prominent
notice of licensing under copyleft-next seems inconsistent with (or
perhaps redundant in relation to) the notice preservation condition.
There is no need for an affirmative requirement to provide a license
text (or inform the user about what the license is) beyond the
preservation of whatever license information upstream licensors have
provided. Therefore we depart from the earlier formulation which I
believe was modeled on language in MPL 2.0.
Commit [0eb4829: Attempt at definition of 'Proprietary License'
changed the definition of the Derivative Work and in particular
the second exception from:
(ii) a mere reproduction of My Code;
to
(ii) a mere reproduction of My Code, without more
i.e. “, without more” has been added. As far as I can tell, that
sentence simply does not parse with that addition and it seems
something more was meant to follow, but did not. Remove the
superflous words bringing the previous wording back.
The effect of this change should be that there is no need for a strong/weak
copyleft distinction of the historical (i.e. GPL vs. LGPL) sort.
A definition of 'Public Interface' needs to be provided.
This clarification is taken from GPLv3, where it was inserted to
mollify concerns of patent-holding companies overly worried about the
potential effects of GPLv3 on their portfolios. It is obvious from the
definition of Licensed Patents that it cannot extend to claims first
infringed by further modification of My Code.
This commit also clarifies the exemplary nature of Appendix A, moves
the "GPL" definition to 2c, and moves the Corresponding Source
definition to 2d, renamed 'Ordinary Corresponding Source'.
This provision incorporates the AGPLv3 interpretation of RMS and
bkuhn, according to which a mere distributor of a modified version
must design the software in such a way that, when run to provide a
network service, it reasonably can be expected to inform users how to
get the source code (in addition to the requirement applying to the
mere network-service-deployer of a version modified by the deployer).
