Do we want to allow sub-licensing? If so, on what terms?

[zspencer]

After lots of very informative posts by @drllau; I'm beginning to think that taking the time to understand what we want to allow from a "sublicensing" perspective.

At present, we do not have any language around sub-licensing; beyond allowing anyone to do anything with the code without worrying about them violating our copyright or patent rights. I think (And @drllau / @maximegalon5 correct me if I'm wrong) this means that anyone who buys a license can grant others sub-licenses?

As a result, someone could buy a license, name their project "womp-womp-ensated" and distribute it under a much more permissive license; thus preventing us from making Compensated socioeconomically sustainable.

I believe (and, again, am probably wrong) that the way to resolve this is to adjust the license to explicitly reserve sublicensing rights while making exceptions for particular use cases.

This seems time and attention expensive, and I do not feel qualified to make the decisions about that. @maximegalon5 - Would you be willing to take point on thinking through whether or not this is a risk worth mitigating at this time; determining a reasonable course of action, and facilitating the discussion around it, and then a proposal for how we could move forward?

[drllau]

anyone who buys a license can grant others sub-licenses?

Only to the exact version license (which Zee has defined to be 0.x). I raise the point because the Prosperity license is defective in stating:

Copyright
The contributor licenses you to do everything with this software that would otherwise infringe their copyright in it.

in contrast with the Parity License which has

Excuse
You're excused for unknowingly breaking Copyleft if you contribute as required, or stop doing anything requiring this license, within thirty days of learning you broke the rule. You're excused for unknowingly breaking Notices if you take all practical steps to comply within thirty days of learning you broke the rule.

Now under international copyright law (note the US has own pecularities such as DCMA) as literary work you are allowed to:

• RESELL, ie assign
  • {right, title, interest}
  • {own, control, exercise, have right to grant}
  • {now, future}
  • anything other than {violate, infringe, dilute} Zinc's copyright
• grant/execute license
  • perpetual, renewable, time-limited
  • worldwide,
  • exclusive, sole, co-exclusive, non-exclusive,
  • royalty-{bearing.free},
  • (non)transferable, (ir)revocable
• sublicense
  • shallow, deep, multiple tier
  • copyleft, permissive, commercial, proprietary (defense section apart)
• practice
  • reproduce,
  • modify (but under the contribute back),
  • translate,
  • display (I interpret this as equiv to PAGE),
  • transform (I interpret this as compile to VM or native code)
  • perform (ie run as executable),
  • distribute, (I interpret as M2M like backup ... at least 1 copy allowed by law)
  • disseminate, (I interpret as M2P in awareness that it is copyrighted)
  • communicate, (P2P)
  • import, (cross jurisdictional borders, covered by Bernes and later WIPO treaties)
  • make available, (think beta to closed group outside entity)
  • publish (think general release)
• waiver (usually anything onerous to other party like payment for 1st month)
  • non-assertion (give up privilege forever)
  • abeyance (privilege exists but not going to collect)
• neighbouring rights
  • moral (integrity)
  • database
  • public "lending" ... I suppose another repos hosting

This was the reason that I suspected OSI rejected Prosperity/Parity as open source since it didn't consider all the scenarios, wasn't written by a professional and therefore whilst good intending is defective to legal eyes like mine. Think of law as

1. natural language parser (lawyer) +
2. centuries of bytecode, idioms, patterns etc with massive technical debt
3. executing on steam engines (courts), oil gensets (arbitration) or gas turbines (ADR)
4. with vague unclear unilateral specs by one client party (GIGO)
5. and you expect the contract translated into legalese to compile cleanly and run?