The OSL - Open Solvers Licensing - for the FOSS developers.
Erez Elul, 2006.
I apologise for my bad english, which is not my native language.
Here I try to express the licensing I propose .It might be good business in itself. It needs law consulting for to begin with. This licensing may bridge the gap between building business and FOSS developing qualities, so if it sound, then it has a lot of market. I need this licensing for developing my technology with others.
Introduction
This call is to both sides of the industry, namely the business concerns and the hackers and it introduces a new licensing approach for the FOSS developers believing their contribution in itself worth also money.
As a starting reference for my opinion about FOSS, you can use the Licensing HOWTO, by Eric Steven Raymond, acted (2002) as the president of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), and you can also see the OSI current board and their recommendations as for jobs and business.
The new licensing approach is formed into the OSL, a shorthand for Open Solvers Licensing, and the approach is shifted from copyright toward trade secret types of law,
where the former enables information in the free area and latter in safe forums and
where the latter is instead of or in addition to the former.
For more about Trade secret laws see this.
In short, the OSL is a licensing which is granted directly from the contributors to the users and across all the modifications and distributions, such that the link between the modifications and the distributers is kept by notifications of the origins and of the issuing dates, so that in each handing over an exchange of value in meeting of minds is agreed until and including the handing over reaching who make profit from the contributions, where making profit is agreed only if it is to be shared with the contributors as the profit reaches a minimum defined by the contributor, and so those how do not share are the contributor's competitors, agains which the safe forums are to protect all the contributions as trade secrets.
The OSL keeps the advantages gained by developing in the FOSS community, while it focuses on the boost for the contributors, the boost which is resulted directly from their contributions, the contributions which may even be nothing else than a pure idea or a simple content.
By using the OSL, the contributors can still exact their intellectual properties protecting their contribtuion. Consequently, the use of OSL provides a legal case covering business plans and models based on this licensing. Thereby, the OSL presumably enables decreasing of the middle man volume, increasing of the investment, not only by support, but also for gaining profit, but always as the contributors remain independent and cooperating freely in and in between these businesses.
Finally, the OSL requires company services and so the first and ad hoc business plan/model introduced here is of the Open Solvers Licensing Initiative (OSLI).
Considering the FSF, any license that provides the user certain specific freedoms is a free software license and so I argue that the OSL can be free software license for you, if you would accept that each one in the community is able to be also a licensee of OSL, but of course you should check it with their Compliance Lab.
Overview
In seeking for how to contribute best for its development a complete new technology to the FOSS community, I met two distinguished aspects involved in any development in the community, namely: the purely functional and the social or ideological.
The first (-functional) is the fact that software is better developed, when any user has the opportunity to contribute. It constitutes feedback reactions and it is scalable. This fact has surely proved itself with no doubt.
The second (-social) is the 'freedom' attribute of the developers, which is collectively perceived also as the cooperative spirit in the community and is projected as a matter of identity manifested as a way of living and doing things, as far as that is or can be restrained by ethic and/or realized in a new or better way of making business.
Is the second a myth? Well, as we are so big and getting bigger and as we have our development from within our development, this spirit must also allow us be maturer as far as be self-sustained and hence be such which concern also for the long term of our activities in addition to any of the actions, which may take or not, at any specific moment.
But, in fact there are only 3 ways for any developer to earn money, namely:
1) Make a server application for to earn from users and/or advertisement, presumably then you would close your special code in the server and contribute some of it to the community, depended on your generosity;
2) Develop your skills in the community and offer your skills in the propertarian space; and
3) Be supported by the propertarian giants as IBM/Lenovo and Oracle etc.
Since all the above 3 ways do not allow developing a new technology independently from the giants, I tried to find some logic, and found at the bottom of all that FOSS is all about customizing the Copyright laws for our functional objectives/freedoms, while leaving out our social objectives/freedoms to the ethic, collective spirit and/or chances.
Fine or not, when unfolding this customizing, one can find that the customizing is done by disclaiming our lawful rights, hence neglecting what I would latter state as the long term of the independency of each of us, which I would argue to be a decisive matter of our 'freedom' and which is boiled down to the worth of money from the act of the contributing in itself to our community.
I would argue that in fact we can (and even must) make much better of it, namely customizing the laws for our objectives including lawful rights for having benefits from the act of contributing to our community, and still while keeping the delivery to each in the community to be in low-price or be costless.
In this way we could become attractive also for those who find their need be fulfilled in protection by Patent laws, those how could bring nothing else than their purified ideas. In other words, instead of fighting against the rules (Patent laws), why not use rules with better care for our needs.
Out of the 4 Intellectual property laws namely: Copyright laws, which does not protect against modifications, Patent laws, of which realizing the properties are expensive, Trademark laws, which protect only specific expressions, and Trade Secrecy laws, the latest one is choosen as the base for the OSL.
Here you can see How and what to protect and the Objectives and the Guidelines of the OSL.
But first, let me share with you my view about us, our objectives, needs and freedom.
As I see us
We produce and/or hold intellectual properties originating in our activities emerging in solving problems, and we are involved in the activities only if and when each of us is independent.
Our activities are governed by licensing and in these activities, each of us alone, in competitions against other/s and/or in cooperations with other/s, may be involved.
Our cooperation/s together with the independency of each of us is our business and the licensing governing our activities governs also in our competitions against the others.
These activities may be resulted in tools.
We enjoy low-priced or costless tools, which are better produced in our community, since, as we use the tools, we can also see, change, copy and/or make available to others the tools and/or all of, or part of, that which is beyond the envelope covering the tools or is beyond the interface for using the tools.
Currently and legally, the independency of each of us is constituted exactly by attaching these 4 actions to the use of the tool, but as such it is constituted only for any specific moment, and so this independency is only a momentary independency, momentary as the nature of any action we make, even if it can be at any time.
In fact the independency in the activities involved in solving problems takes place in both: its immediate term and its long term:
1) In its immediate term, the independency is of the actions which the one can take in solving problems (the 4+1 specified actions in the momentary independency).
2) In its long term, the independency is of the standard of living allowing the activities and the actions of the one in solving our problems (earning a living).
We need licensing supporting our businesses, as distinguished from having our businesses be of struggling for surviving in a given frame of such licensing.
The long term of the independency, why?
One may ask why bother much with the long term of the independency as being a matter of freedom, or put it in the level of necessity as the freedom itself?
Well, solving problems and/or developing tools are long term issues requiring resources for keeping their development maintained with patience for spotting problems to be solved or emerged in the solutions, as well as having free-mind-time for finding different views for innovative solutions, if all those are to be in freedom, then this freedom means that each of us can independently continue these activities.
Therefore the sense of continuity, as distinguished from any specific moment in its continuum, is essential for solving problems and is especially essential when the solving is in a competitive/cooperative manner, in which also one's identity or passion is addressed/developed, and so exactly the long term of one's independency is that which allows the necessary continuity in the level of the individual attempting to solve problem/s.
Conclusion: For the matter of the independency of each us, it is the licensing governing our activities which must protect both, the immediate and the long, terms of our independencies.
The ideas - Tesla case
Could you please think for a moment about one like Tesla, who did not introduce his ideas and works in any conventional medium such as universities and who worked previous to the Nazis time and had some "obsessive fear" from allowing the use of his works by "germans".
Considering his obsession, can you see what would happened if such Nazis would have developed their tools form his works?
Considering his ideas and works can you see also the business resulted from making patents by such as Edison and Westinghouse.
How would you attract such one like Tesla to contribute to our community?
What I argue is that if we really want to decrease costs of solving problems, then we must attract/secure those which their main contribution can be only ideas, as distinguished from their descriptions interpretable by human and/or machines, mainly when these ideas are the origins of the solving problems progresses, which are involved in.
How and what to protect
What is desirable to be protected, if at all?
Even though it is not against any manipulations on the object which we produce, it is still, in my view, both terms of the independencies, which are desirable to be protected, when are to be involved in producing the object.
How, based on trade secret laws, to protect both terms of the independencies and still letting the accesses be open and fluent?
On account of the trade secret information may exists or be accessed only in frames, named here safe forums, which are able to be created and be participated by any licensee, (and so safe forums are opened,) but only as long as the information is kept by all licensees to be hidden from competitors, who are those which do not share their profit from using or relying on the information, if this profit is bigger than a minimum fixed by the one contributing the information.
Hence, once the minimum is fixed by the contributor, all this mechanism is fluent until a profit reaches the minuim, then the contributor shall be notified and be reached for an agreement as for the form of the payment being the share for covering the long term of the independency of the contributor, if and when the profit is bigger than the minimum.
Finally, for completing this mechanism to be fluent, any licensee must be requested for securing the information against the competitors and the penalty for not applying the requests is up to the fixed minimum and for making unshared profit is fixed and higher than the expected share, say as e.g. 10%.
The guidelines for OSL
Any safe forum is able to be created and be participated by any licensee to which a licensed information being a trade secret is granted.
When one contributes to a safe forum for one's self and "friends" in the community, then the one considers obligatory the "friends" to share with the one their profit from this contribution, if the profit is bigger than a minimum fixed by the one and also that those who do not share are the competitors of the one.
Any licensed information must be qualified either as an idea or as a derivative, and is qualified from its issuing time in a safe forum untill proving that the conditions holding it fail to hold, where challenging the conditions may be by any licensee and at any time.
An idea is a work holding all the 3 undermentioned conditions:
A) the work is new at its issued time;
B) the work is understandable beyond its current description; and
C) the feasibility of the usefulness of the work is accepted,
where the first condition fail to hold only if a valid reference to the same idea issued in a previous work is given and
where each of the two other conditions fail to hold only if introducing criteria, by which the prove is applicable, and by which the work results from the prove in failing to hold the condition, are all given understood and agreed;
A derivative is a description being derivative work relying on or using one or more idea and/or such derivatives, all being its origins, where an derivative holds when all its origins are informed in its identification presented in accessing it and/or in itself and where the condition fail to hold if a valid reference to origin of the work which is not informed in its identification or when an origin is informed but is not an origin of the work.
Before any derivative in safe forum may be accessed, all its origins must be offered to be challenged, and only after accepting their conditions to hold the access to the derivative may be provided.
FOSS, idea, copyrights laws and solving problem
Currently, the only licenses supported by FOSS are those originating in copyright laws, while these type of licenses are valid also beyond us.
The key per each solving problem is an idea.
Each idea can always be described by different descriptions.
Only the descriptions of ideas but not the ideas may be protected by copyright laws.
The descriptions of one idea, also when describing executable tool/s and including the tool/s together with all their derivatives, are derivatives of the idea, where each such tool is a description interpretable by machine.
Licensing originating in copyright laws can deal only with some, not all, derivatives of each key in solving problem. And so, aslo re-engineering by your competitors is a legal act as long as its resources are protected only by copyright.
The OSL Objectives
Handling better the long term of the independency of each of us, by sharing of profit.
Handling better our pure ideas, by qualifying the information either as an idea or as a derivative.
Forming ourselves in businesses suitable for all the 3 states, namely:
1) Keeping low-priced or costless products/contents;
2) Earning from nothing else than our contributions; and
3) In the root of all, letting each of us be free (-action) and independent (-activities).
Keeping the 5 actions, namely:
1) to use, 2) to know how, 3) to copy, 4) to modify and 5) to make available to others,
be free in competing and/or cooperating developing environment of producing products, such as tools, available in low-priced or costless to everybody, but also keeping this freedom as independency in its both aspect, namely the immediate term and the long term, by also keeping the attribution to the one giving the contribution, of ideas as well as of their descriptions/manifestations, be materialized as a property valid in court.
My selfish interest here is the fun of contributing the activities of my mind with less distractive dependency upon carrying out my living costs and that includes also the development of the technology I already invented and still carry responsibility for it, its developers and its development.
The ten conditions for the safe forums of OSL
OSL grante licensed information only in safe forums.
Imagine these ten conditions together, and for the sake of the definitions of freedom by FSF imagine also that each in the comunity is also a licensee of OSL:
A) Any forum, in the virtual/digital as well as in real/non-digital space, is safe forum, if signing in or entering into the forum is conditioned by commitment for doing all which is necessary for not disclosing out of safe forums any licensed information, where
B) Licensed information granted for use to licensee only as a trade secret and only if the licensee is committed to not disclose the information out of safe forums;
C) Licensed information may be copied by licensees only in and/or in between safe forums;(freedom_2)
D) Licensed information may be made available to others only in safe forums, and when the information is interpretable by machine merely, then it must be made available with licensed information being interpretable by human, where the latter decodes and clarifies the former (so that we can see it, freedom_1 );
E) Licensed information may be modified by licensees, only when identification of modifying the information with the date of the modification in relation to all previous modifications until and including all the origins of the information are made available, as the licensed information is available in any safe forum/s;(freedom_3)
F) The producer/s making the origin of and/or of modification of licensed information must be given a share of a profit made from the information, if the producer/s wishes and the profit is bigger than a minimum fixed by the producer/s, in such a case, those who do not share their profit are the competitors of the producer/s;
G) Licensed information may be package available in safe forums only to licensees creating their safe forum, which is or includes the media into which the package is copied, in such a case the licensee may use licensed information;(freedom_0)
H) Spreading information referring in the public domain to a specific licensed information may only be about the referred information and not disclosing the licensed information to the exstant of giving an vantage to the competitors of the producer/s, hence the spreading information can serve only for the purpose of attracting the others in the public domain to the specific referred information in the safe forums; and
I) Any licensee in the above conditions is permitted to participate in or to create safe forums.
Trade secret laws, licensed information and safe forums
The information granted to licensees are able to pass only in and in between such safe forums and only such availability of the information is licensed.
As for licensed information, the safe forums practically act as free area, since any licensee accepting said conditions can create or participate in safe forums.
Licensed information then, can be known to all, but also is held as a secret by each of us, as it is disclosed only in the safe forums.
As trade secrets, the information are by definition not disclosed to the world at large, only in safe forums. Such licensed information by definition can never be, as copyrighted information can, in the public domain.
With securing the licensed information in the safe forums and with having our works being licensed information dated and well disinguished from works of others, we can better hold our case in court, if we can find our distinguished works later dated in the hand of other than a licensee.
The conflict upon which such case in court can be built surrounds such license licensing information, as the licensing also grants making from the information a profit bigger than a fixed minimum, but only if the profit is shared with the owner of the information, and so the conflict is against competitors making profit (and/or earning privilege), but without such sharing.
Such competitors are the relevant portion of the public to which the licensed information is to be kept unknown, where the penalty for not applying the requests for securing the information against the competitors is up to the fixed minimum and for making unshared profit is fixed and higher than the expected share, say as e.g. 10%.
The idea of safe forums is inspired from the safe space provided by strict rules of confidentiality in Co-counselling, for more about it see this.
Last thing: maybe the intimacy of sex can be found as good example for such pattern in safe forums, we all know it and still each of us hold it as a secret and as such it is held and is revealed between us.
Terms: IDEA its Derivatives and format
For to attract contributors of ideas merely and even for to secure their ideas and instead of pushing such contributors toward making patents and be obligated to the companies covering the high costs of the patenting, we can have the ideas as trade secrets qualified differently than other trade secrets, where the ideas with their derivatives are confined in special key zone, but first here are my proposed definitions of such terms:
A) IDEA means the specific key for solving one or more specific problems,
where one or more of the definitions defining the IDEA answer what is to be assembled and how the components of the assemblage are to be aligned and be applied each with the other and with what intention/s, reason/s and/or position/s the assemblage is to be assembled
and where an IDEA is defined such that,
This IDEA
is named as ... name of the IDEA;
is made in ... date the IDEA was made;
is intellectual property of...owner of IDEA;
is permitted to be used under ...conditions of using of the IDEA;
and is defined by one or more of the undermentioned definitions:
definition 1,2,3...
B) Derivative work of an IDEA means any of the descriptions describing, using and/or relying on the IDEA or on one or more of its definitions, also as the descriptions describe executable tool/s and including the tool/s interpretable by machine together with all their derivatives.
C) FORMAT OF DESRIPTION: a description describing executable tool is divided into 3 parts, namely:
1. the IDEA;
2. the statement of usefulness, answering at least one aspect of what use can be accomplished by using the IDEA; and
3. the relation or the body between the IDEA and its usfulness, containing all other which has to be described.
The 2 tests
NOVELTY TEST: the one accessing the IDEA is asked to agree that at least one of the definitions of the IDEA is new for the one, then the NOVELTY TEST passes if the one agrees, otherwise the NOVELTY TEST fails and the one must leaves the safe forum after notfication saying that only if all the definitions of the IDEA are previously known to the one and the one is able to point to all the definitions as a complete IDEA given to the one by other means than the current, then the one is permitted to use the IDEA and all its derivative works.
UNDERSTANDING TEST: the one accessing the IDEA is asked to agree that the one understand the IDEA beyond its current description to such degree that the one is able to describe it differently or to find different description of it, by which the one can conclude the usefulness of the IDEA or of its derivative works.
The Key Zones
Each IDEA with all its derivative works, when is not protected by patent laws (expensive), but is wished to be protected as licensed information by trade secret laws in safe forums, can be protected in its key zone.
Each key zone is an independent part in a safe forum, which is defined by one different IDEA or integration of some IDEAs, and which contains the IDEA/s with all its/their derivative works in the safe forum.
The access to the derivative works of an IDEA is conditioned by the access to the IDEA, after which access the following two tests of NOVELTY and of UNDERSTANDING together with accepting the condition of using of the IDEA, must be passed.
The condition of using of the IDEA
Here are the condition of using of the IDEA :
The value of the availability of an IDEA or of each of its derivatives works is able to be in exchange in contract granting license to licensee only for full commitment of the licensee to:
1. Producing derivative work of the IDEA is conditioned by accepting this agreement.
2. Marking the attribution informing the ORIGIN and FORKING of the work with any modifying or making available the IDEA and/or its derivative works;
3. Sharing of PROFIT/PRIVILEGE derived to the licensee from any modifying resulted in derivative work/s of the IDEA or using, copying, modifying or making available the modification, where the sharing is proportional to the PROFIT/PRIVILEGE when is greater than fixed minimum and the sharing is with one representative authorized by the owner of IDEA, with which the proportion is agreed before crossing the minimum;
4. Disclosing the IDEA and/or its derivatives works is permitted only in safe forum and/or packages to which access is conditioned by first having issued the mark of the attribution and then accepting this agreement and when such safe forums and/or packages are integrated, then the access to the integration is conditioned by accepting the agreement in exchange for the availability of all IDEAs and/or their derivatives works in the integration.
where any safe forum in its activities garenting sucsses of NOVELTY TEST and UNDERSTANDING TEST:
5. NO charging of WARRANTY of any kind by the licensee.
6. TRANSPARENCY of INTENTION of use of the licensee.
Comparison of open source as defined in OSI versus OSL
| licensing type | OSI | OSL |
|---|---|---|
| law type base | copyright | trade secret |
| matter of | description of idea interpretable by human and/or machine | idea interpretable by human |
| be materialized by | no test, as is occupying space | test of NOVELTY and UNDERSTANDING and/or by patent |
| its derivatives | linked and/or modified | its descriptions and thier derivatives |
| granting activities of | unlimited use, copy, change, making available to other | licensed availability |
| disclosing is | unlimited in free area | licensed in login to safe forum |
| limitation in | login to developing platform of a collective work collectively decided | share of profit resulted from modifying |
| attribution | possible | necessary |
| NO WARRANTY | necessary | possible |
| TRANSPARENCY of INTENTION | claimed to be pointless and unenforceable | necessary/possible |
The OSLI
You are very welcomed to participate in building this company.
The OSLI - Open Solvers Licensing Initiative - is a commercial company built around the undermentioned services of:
1) Legal advice maintaining the OSL personalized for the contributors;
2) Company services, such as acting as the holder of the trade secrets, making business plans and providing executive services for their module;
3) Technical writing maintaining descriptions;
4) Server services including check of agreements, developing platform, web mastering etc;
5) Public relation/marketing in open source community communicating to and from the open source resources attempting to close gaps of compatibly (FSF) and certification (OSI) issued by the institutes serving the comuinity;
6) Contacting between contributors and capital support and/or investment; and
7) Marketing product developed by contributors.