[HN Gopher] The Open Source Initiative Did Not Win Neo4j vs. Pur...
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       The Open Source Initiative Did Not Win Neo4j vs. PureThink
        
       Author : joeyespo
       Score  : 83 points
       Date   : 2022-03-18 19:12 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (writing.kemitchell.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (writing.kemitchell.com)
        
       | dataflow wrote:
       | I don't see how the OSI can move past this incident without
       | losing credibility for their position on the meaning of "open-
       | source". If you're trying to convince people that "open-source"
       | _genuinely_ means something different than what they might
       | otherwise have thought, I would think it kind of undermines your
       | position when you get caught twisting the meanings of other words
       | in the process of finding support for your position.
        
       | TuringTest wrote:
       | I don't get why this text says AGPL's section 10 would "allows
       | removal of additional restrictions". But AGPL's section 10 does
       | not such thing, it forbids imposition of any further restrictions
       | - which is somewhat the opposite.
        
         | henryfjordan wrote:
         | I think the author meant section 7:
         | 
         | > 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 governed by this License along with a
         | term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.
         | If a license document contains a further restriction but
         | permits relicensing or conveying under this License, you may
         | add to a covered work material governed by the terms of that
         | license document, provided that the further restriction does
         | not survive such relicensing or conveying.
        
       | henryfjordan wrote:
       | Further even, the OSI and FSF lost in that the courts upheld that
       | you can add the Commons Clause to the AGPLv3 despite the AGPL
       | having a clause saying further restrictions can be ignored. (It
       | gets a little complicated, I believe the reasoning was that Neo4j
       | could only add the commons clause as the original copyright
       | holder/licensor, no sub-licensor could add it)
        
         | TuringTest wrote:
         | I really hope it works that way. Of course the original
         | licensor can distribute their software under any terms they
         | like; even if the license looks similar to the AGPL3 license
         | for the most part, the Commons Clause turns it into a totally
         | different license.
         | 
         | It would be extremely worrisome that the court admitted sub-
         | licensors to add something like the Commons Clause to software
         | they get under the GPL-like licenses; it would completely
         | invalidate them for all purposes, turning them into MIT-like
         | permissive licenses instead.
        
       | pie_flavor wrote:
       | One thing this article doesn't mention, which I had mentioned on
       | the previous thread, is that this really feels like 'false
       | advertising' was used because they couldn't make 'copyright
       | violation' stick. If so, this is the exact opposite of a victory
       | for OSI, as the court judged in favor of the guys making things
       | not-open-source and against the guys trying to make it open-
       | source.
        
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       (page generated 2022-03-18 23:00 UTC)