Questions about copyleft-next

[secureblueadmin]

I have a slightly tangential question along the lines of 

> “I won't engage in proprietary relicensing” and really mean it.

Is the intent of the current section 6 to preclude issues such as the addition of a CLA? https://isitreallyfoss.com/concerns/copyleft-cla/

Also, is there a plan to include an "affero clause" (network distribution) in this license? or in a different license? If so, how could this be done while still preserving the outward compatibility with (non-affero) GPL?


On Monday, June 30th, 2025 at 11:18 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn at ebb.org> wrote:

> 
> 
> > On Mon, Jun 30, 2025 at 6:18 PM secureblueadmin asked about:
> 
> > > [this] is an interesting way of preventing (A)GPL/commercial dual
> > > licensing:
> > > 7. Nullification of Copyleft/Proprietary Dual Licensing
> > > 
> > > If I offer to license, for a fee, a Covered Work under terms other
> > > than a license that is OSI-Approved or FSF-Free as of the release
> > > date of this License or a numbered version of copyleft-next released
> > > by the Copyleft-Next Project, then the license I grant You under
> > > section 1 is no longer subject to the conditions in sections 3
> > > through 5.
> 
> 
> Richard Fontana replied:
> 
> > In copyleft-next 0.3.1 the proprietary relicensing poison pill (isn't that
> > what we sometimes used to call it?)
> 
> 
> Shortly after you (Richard) invented §7, I dubbed it the “copyleft equality
> clause”: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2020/jan/06/copyleft-equality/
> 
> I remember because it marked the third time in my career [0] my only
> contribution to something important was naming it. Now that I'm active in
> copyleft-next again, though, I hope to actually contribute more than names
> for things again. 😆
> 
> I really dislike the term “poison pill” not only for its violence but also
> because it's typically a tactic used by contracting parties who don't trust
> each other. IMO, the copyleft equality clause is a way that a licensor can
> state “I won't engage in proprietary relicensing” and really mean it. It
> builds trust while poison pills typically erode trust.
> 
> secureblueadmin asked:
> 
> > > However, this license also says:
> > > If the Derived Work includes material licensed under the GPL, You may
> > > instead license the Derived Work under the GPL.
> > > 
> > > As far as I can tell, it would seem that if there's some code under
> > > copyleft-next that you want to include in your GPL/commercial dual
> > > licensed software, you can just create a Derived work that combines
> > > `copyleft-next` code with `GPL` code, and then use that derived work (now
> > > under the GPL) in your GPL/commercial dual licensed software. Is this not
> > > a loophole?
> 
> 
> secureblueadmin noted:
> 
> > > Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to read this and bear with my lack of
> > > legal knowledge :)
> 
> 
> Richard replied:
> 
> > No need to apologize for what you say is a lack of legal knowledge. I would
> > think your question would be equally likely to be raised by a lawyer.
> 
> 
> I agree. IANAL either but I've been involved in copyleft policy for 30
> years, and I still had to stare at the copyleft-next text and your question
> for about 7 minutes to make sure I definitely agreed with Denver's and
> Richard's analysis.
> 
> I think I do, for a third, slightly different reason: the copyleft equality
> clause actually removes the §§3-5 requirements for everyone in the world all
> at once and its binding once the Covered Work is distributed just once.
> 
> Remember the entity seeking to proprietary relicense has to have exclusive
> rights to the code anyway, so they could always license the Covered Work a
> new way (including under GPLv2, if they wanted) and didn't need copyleft-next
> §3 to do it anyway. Heck, §7 even lets them do it, too, without §§3-5.
> 
> The big flaw still remaining in the equality clause is that it may not fully
> prevent entities in cahoots doing something nasty.
> 
> Meanwhile, on my “list” of conversations to reopen is a complete overhaul of
> the approach in §3¶2 anyway. But more on that much later; not first thing on
> my list.
> 
> -- bkuhn
> 
> [0] I named the Classpath and the Replicant projects but have contributed
> virtually nothing else to them other than the names and moral support to
> the developers.