Open Software License

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The Open Software License (OSL) [1] is a software license created by Lawrence Rosen. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) has certified it as an open source license, but the Debian project judged version 1.1 [2] to be incompatible with the DFSG. The OSL is a copyleft license, with a termination clause triggered by filing a lawsuit alleging patent infringement.

Many people in the free software / open source community feel that software patents are harmful to software, and are particularly harmful to open source software [3]. The OSL attempts to counteract that by creating a pool of software which a user can use if that user does not harm it by attack of it with a patent lawsuit.

As of the end of 2006, the OSL is not used by any well-known free software projects.

1 Author
2 Key features
- 2.1 Patent action termination clause
- 2.2 Warranty of provenance
3 Comparison with the LGPL/GPL
4 Further provisions
5 Later versions
6 References
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Author

Lawrence Rosen created the Open Software License, which is certified as an open source license by the Open Source Initiative.

[edit] Key features

[edit] Patent action termination clause

The OSL has a termination clause intended to dissuade users from filing patent infringement lawsuits:

10) Termination for Patent Action. This License shall terminate automatically and You may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License as of the date You commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim, against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work infringes a patent. This termination provision shall not apply for an action alleging patent infringement by combinations of the Original Work with other software or hardware.

[edit] Warranty of provenance

Another goal of the OSL is to warrant provenance [4].

7) Warranty of Provenance and Disclaimer of Warranty. Licensor warrants that the copyright in and to the Original Work and the patent rights granted herein by Licensor are owned by the Licensor or are sublicensed to You under the terms of this License with the permission of the contributor(s) of those copyrights and patent rights.

[edit] Comparison with the LGPL/GPL

The OSL is intended to be similar to the LGPL [5]. Note that the definition of Derivative Works in the OSL does not cover linking to OSL software/libraries so software that merely links to OSL software is not subject to the OSL license.

The OSL is not compatible with the GPL [6]. It has been claimed that the OSL is legally stronger than the GPL [7], however, unlike the GPL, the OSL has never been tested in court and is not widely used.

[edit] Assent to license

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) claims all versions of the OSL have a term which requires that distributors should try to obtain explicit assent to the license. If true, this would mean that distributing OSL software on ordinary FTP sites, sending patches to ordinary mailing lists, or storing the software in an ordinary version control system, can be arguably a violation of the license and would subject those to possible termination of the license. Thus, the OSL makes it very difficult to develop software using the ordinary tools of Free Software development.

The FSF does not cite the specific section or paragraph of the OSL that contains this restriction on the licensee. Section 3 of the OSL does require the LICENSOR (not the licensee) make machine readable copies of the source code available in reasonably convenient ways. Section 5 requires licensees who make the original work or derivative works available for use by anyone other than the licensee AND who distribute the original and derivative works to license the derivative work with the OSL license. This is the OSL method to impose a copyleft condition.

[edit] Distribution

If the FSF claim is true then the main difference between the GPL and OSL concerns possible restrictions on redistribution. Both licenses impose a kind of reciprocity condition requiring authors of extensions to the software to license those extensions with the respective license of the original work. The FSF fears that the OSL also restricts use of the software outside your organization; the FSF argues that making the software available for use over the Internet may require making the source code available.

[edit] Patent action termination clause

The patent action termination clause, described above, is a further significant difference between the OSL and GPL.

[edit] Further provisions

Derivative Works must be distributed under the same license. (§1c)
Covered works that are distributed must be accompanied by the source code, or access to it made available. (§3)
No restrictions on charging money for programs covered by the license, but source code must be included or made available for a reasonable fee. (§3)
Covered works that are distributed must include a verbatim copy of the license. (§16)
Distribution implies (but does not explicitly state) a royalty-free license for any patents embodied in the software. (§2)

[edit] Later versions

It is optional, though common for the copyright holder to add “or any later version” to the distribution terms in order to allow distribution under future versions of the license. This term is not directly mentioned in the OSL. However, it would seem to violate section 16, which requires a verbatim copy of the license.