Shields up from xGPLs?
ignoramous opened this issue · 4 comments
As someone who previously used BSD-3 for my projects, I began to worry if tech geeks would take offence to it or not if I semi-automatically added content from other people's GPLv3 projects to them. So I created this licence instead.
GPLv3 is one among many aggressively copy-left licenses out there. That means, any content from GPLv3 in a non-GPL project makes everything else GPLv3 too. It is viral in that sense. One cannot, legally anyway, re-license it except for moving to an even stricter compatible copy-left (for ex, moving from LGPLv3 -> GPLv3; or GPLv3 to AGPLv3).
So, I am here (after a conversation with 1Hosts' badmojr) confused how Dandelicence shields from that? Thanks.
Disclosure: I co-develop a DNS content blocking app and service that uses both 1Hosts and adlift (through OISD).
According to the general idea behind Dandelicence, there are primarily 2 things in it that aim to guard against very hostile DMCA takedowns by GNU worshippers:
- The ability to designate paragraphs or individual repo files as having to be treated as if they were and still are xGPL / CC-SA / etc. (which ironically is not something that 1Hosts currently does.
😅 ) - A general request to "Pwease don't take down my repo right away. I promise to credit you and/or remove those entries, depending on what you want me to do."
If you have more in-depth questions or worries, I can look into them sometime on Wednesday.
The ability to designate paragraphs or individual repo files as having to be treated as if they were and still are xGPL / CC-SA / etc. (which ironically is not something that 1Hosts currently does)
GPLv3 (and AGPLv3 even more so) prevents this. When one part of the code-base is xGPLv3 and it builds / is used by another part of the code-base that isn't xGPLv3; then the latter is automatically covered under xGPLv3, and it cannot be licensed any other way. That, in essence, is how copy-lefts work.
If you have more in-depth questions or worries
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There isn't a license that can escape GPLv3. If there was one, the Free Software Foundation would have plugged those loopholes too (like they did with TiVoization by introducing a more vague AGPLv3). I am not a lawyer, but from reading the license text, I do not think "Dandelicence" escapes GPLv3 in anyway at all. As such, you may want to rethink the use of this license.
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A word of caution: Well-known licenses are drafted by domain-expert lawyers because of the nature of copyright / liability / warranty laws across different jurisdictions of various nation states.
@DandelionSprout I added your list and license to uBO's Filter list licenses wiki and described it as:
attribution, good intent for brief description in the "Other licenses" column.
Is there something else you'd like to be added to the description?
I admit to be unsure whether "Attribution" would be the correct word to use, though there doesn't seem to be any uBO-included lists that use BSD-3 that we could compare with. So I guess "Attribution" should work well enough.