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LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

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Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#91

Post by throwaway150 »

jrmg wrote: post #61

It seems obvious that this ‘may’ is the ‘may’ used in the sense of granting permission: “you may go to the restroom”, “you may begin eating”, “you may ask questions now”, “you may kiss the bride” etc. All these are clear. The wedding officiant isn’t saying “You might have permission to kiss the bride! Just try it and we’ll find out! Ha ha!” To interpret this as saying that you might be licensed is just as nonsensical…

Speaking only for myself here. But I don't have the arrogance to assume that I can interpret legalese the way I interpret English. When shit goes to court, saying here's what I thought "may" means is not going to be a legal defense strategy. There's a reason I hire lawyers for this kind of shit because they are really good at their job and I won't pretend I know their job better than they do.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#92

Post by TheRealPomax »

jrmg wrote: post #61

It seems obvious that this ‘may’ is the ‘may’ used in the sense of granting permission: “you may go to the restroom”, “you may begin eating”, “you may ask questions now”, “you may kiss the bride” etc. All these are clear. The wedding officiant isn’t saying “You might have permission to kiss the bride! Just try it and we’ll find out! Ha ha!” To interpret this as saying that you might be licensed is just as nonsensical…

Licenses are not about what things "seem", their text should be clear enough to hold up to legal scrutiny, not just what some person who speaks some local variant of English thinks is obvious.

Even if you're a lawyer, whether it's obvious to you is irrelevant: it has to be obvious to everyone. And if it's not (and it should be abundantly clear that it's not, given the linked discussion), the license needs fixing.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#93

Post by wang_li »

fhdkweig wrote: post #51
throwaway150 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you didn't mention the license, it was in public domain. I don't think this has ever been the case. If a license is not mentioned, it is always "All rights reserved" by the authors of the project, by the Berne convention (1886).

While I don't know if license and copyright are the same thing, the film Night of the Living Dead was famously accidentally added to the public domain due to a forgotten copyright notice.

Copyright is a right held over the ownership of a piece of IP. A license is a permission slip that allows you to exercise actions that would otherwise be reserved by copyright. There is no requirement for a license. It's not a state of a piece of IP.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#94

Post by throwaway89201 »

leoedin wrote: post #77
paxys wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the license has been unclear for 8 years and the company hasn't bothered to get a lawyer to fix it then the "I'm just an engineer and don't know about this stuff" excuse doesn't apply. It's obvious that they are deliberately keeping the license vague and confusing to scare users into paying for a commercial edition while also calling their product "open source" for marketing purposes.

I really don’t think it’s unclear. The use of “you may be … in one of two ways” is unambiguous. The fact someone opened an issue is evidence that one person was confused by it, but we don’t know anything about that person. They may not be a native speaker of English. Or they might be trying to pick a fight because the licensing terms don’t agree with their viewpoint.

Counterpoint: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46862339

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#95

Post by nicoburns »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #6

I'm already shutting down my private instance of Mattermost, no thank you. I'm thinking of Zulip, at least they aren't pulling this shenanigans.

I can whole heartedly recommend Zulip. They really get open source, allow you to own your data, and their UI despite being a bit quirky is IMO the best out there for handling complex conversations (the ability for admins to retrospectively move mesages between topics like old school forum software being a real standout feature).

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#96

Post by bombcar »

throwaway150 wrote: post #91
jrmg wrote: post #61

It seems obvious that this ‘may’ is the ‘may’ used in the sense of granting permission: “you may go to the restroom”, “you may begin eating”, “you may ask questions now”, “you may kiss the bride” etc. All these are clear. The wedding officiant isn’t saying “You might have permission to kiss the bride! Just try it and we’ll find out! Ha ha!” To interpret this as saying that you might be licensed is just as nonsensical…

Speaking only for myself here. But I don't have the arrogance to assume that I can interpret legalese the way I interpret English. When shit goes to court, saying here's what I thought "may" means is not going to be a legal defense strategy. There's a reason I hire lawyers for this kind of shit because they are really good at their job and I won't pretend I know their job better than they do.

> saying here's I thought "may" means is not going to be a legal defense strategy

It is - it might not be successful (the court may rule against you) - but if what you thought "may" meant was close to what a "reasonable person" would have thought, you may be ruled against with no or low penalty.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#97

Post by lukan »

LamaOfRuin wrote: post #67
thisislife2 wrote: post #18

Is the bad publicity worth it with this kind of rug pull to "we are opensource, but not really" ? I get that an open source product can get you some free (word of mouth) and good publicity. But in general, open source is also strongly associated with "free" (as in you don't have to pay money for it). So if you do want to make money from a software product, weigh the pros and cons carefully - commercial open source pr…

I believe they generally refer to themselves as open-core.

From this githubpage:

"Mattermost is an open source platform for secure collaboration across the entire software development lifecycle.. "

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#98

Post by sowbug »

Are there any instances where a fork of a project has altered the license language for the purpose of reducing this kind of ambiguity?

Either the original license grant is expansive, so the clarification is welcome and the fork will become the standard unless/until the modification is upstreamed, or else the grant is restrictive, so the fork language is invalid, and the grantors face the risk of laches or other equitable defenses if they don't stop the fork from offering the less ambiguous interpretation that grantees rely on.

Fork as legal test case, if you will.

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#99

Post by KolmogorovComp »

ethin wrote: post #43
paxys wrote: post #29

I dug around for ~10 minutes and it's probably not an exaggeration to say that Mattermost might have the most confusing licensing of any software product in existence. From the license page on their repo ( https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost/blob/master/LICENSE... ): > 1. You are licensed to use compiled versions of the Mattermost platform produced by Mattermost, Inc. under an MIT LICENSE So just the compiled ve…

Wouldn't that license also violate the AGPL? I mean, it does say, in 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…

yes, but that's not what happen here. this part of the AGPL is there to avoid people adding more restrictions, but here mattermost is loosening up the restrictions.

> > We promise that we will not enforce the copyleft provisions in AGPL v3.0 against you if your application ... [set of conditions]

Re: LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

#100

Post by throwaway89201 »

jrmg wrote: post #61

It seems obvious that this ‘may’ is the ‘may’ used in the sense of granting permission: “you may go to the restroom”, “you may begin eating”, “you may ask questions now”, “you may kiss the bride” etc. All these are clear. The wedding officiant isn’t saying “You might have permission to kiss the bride! Just try it and we’ll find out! Ha ha!” To interpret this as saying that you might be licensed is just as nonsensical…

The counterpoint is that three sentences away, there's a clear "You are licensed to use the source code" for the non-server parts. It can certainly be argued that there's an intentional difference. Extended court cases have been fought over mere punctuation. In any case, the FUD that this creates is enough to make anyone think twice about reusing the server code, especially as they have refused to clarify for many years now.

Also, the ambiguity is not only in the "you may be" part, but also in the "to create compiled versions" part. Open source is more than creating compiled versions of source code.

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