On Wednesday, January 30, 2019 8:10:13 PM EST Simon Farnsworth wrote: > I do if I'm using it to provide a service that could be construed as "making > the functionality of the Program … available to third parties as a > service", under section 13 of the SSPL. As MongoDB's functionality includes > retrieval of documents and document fragments, it's possible to construe > the licence as covering anything that involves retrieval of a document or > document fragment from a server (so all web applications, for example). Yeah, that's not what section 13 actually says. If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge, under the terms of this License. While the license certainly doesn't require anything that uses MongoDB as a backing store to be free software, you should definitely make that free software under the terms of a license such as the AGPL. > This may not be what's intended, but it's a reasonable reading of the > licence as written, and it could get expensive to argue in court that > covering all document retrieval was not intended. Perhaps. The easiest option is to just use only free software. > > > > > > >> I do not have sufficient rights to relicence the Linux kernel under the > >> SSPL - it's not GPLv2 compatible - and the Linux kernel is one part of > >> a service I might choose to offer using only Free Software from Fedora's > >> repos, plus an SSPL licensed component. > > > > > > Yeah, none of that matters. See section 1. > > > I've read section 1 - Linux implements more than just a "Standard Interface" > as per that section (it goes beyond POSIX or any interface specified by an > Official Standards Body, and is not specified for a particular programming > language). Because of the way section 1 is drafted, "System Libraries" are > excluded from section 13, but *not* "Major Components"; the kernel in this > case is a major component, and is thus only definitively excluded if it > implements a "Standard Interface". While I disagree, if you're worried about that just don't use grsecurity and you're fine. Oh, and don't use proprietary kernel modules. > This may be an oversight - they may intend to exclude "Major Components" as > well as "System Libraries", but it's not what they've written in the > licence text. Only an item "which is not part of that Major Component" or > which "serves only to enable use of the work with that Major Component, or > to implement a Standard Interface" are excluded from the SSPL's reach. > But not according to the text of the SSPL; for MongoDB specifically, the FAQ > may act as "estoppel", but it's not part of the licence as written; merely > providing document storage or retrieval provides "the functionality of the > Program … to third parties". If I do that as a service - e.g. pulling out > billing records from MongoDB - I'm "mak[ing] the functionality of the > Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service", and > I'm covered by section 13 and have to distribute all but "System Libraries" > as source under the SSPL. This *includes* "Major Components", as section 1 > doesn't actually exclude them. Yes, I think SSPLv2 is going to be coming around soon to address that. > Again, this may not be what they intended, but it's what the text of the > licence says, and I would rather not rely on having to claim that what they > wrote is not what they meant in order to succeed in court. Fair enough. > Given these issues with the drafting of the licence, and the need to rely on > MongoDB's FAQ to argue that, in the MongoDB case, the FAQ acts as estoppel, > I can see why Fedora legal would consider the licence non-free. You've made > claims for it that aren't backed by the actual text of the licence, for > example. Sure, but my interpretation of the License is based both on my comprehension and on the intent set by the FAQ. -- John M. Harris, Jr. <johnmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Splentity https://splentity.com/
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