diff --git a/dosp-survey.ltx b/dosp-survey.ltx index 48339ed435f7fe592c4377854f827339a0d6ede8..8f6571c7a22939175c184880d3ebfded47dcea14 100644 --- a/dosp-survey.ltx +++ b/dosp-survey.ltx @@ -130,58 +130,63 @@ just be a precursor to tomorrow's recognized standard. \numberedsection{Early History} -For many years, Aladdin GhostScript implemented a DOSP policy whereby -new versions were published under a proprietary license, and then regularly -relicensed under the GNU GPL with a delay of one year. (It might be -clearer to say that year-old versions were regularly republished under -the GPL.) +The earliest notable use of DOSP we found is Aladdin GhostScript (TODO: WHEN). +Aladdin's practice was to publish new versions of the software under proprietary +license. It also published versions of its software under GPL if they were +older than about a year.\footnote{CITE} -GhostScript author L. Peter Deutsch described this practice as providing +GhostScript's author, L. Peter Deutsch, described this practice as providing commercial exclusivity that would help fund continued development of the -project. - -Eventually, GhostScript adopted a simultaneous dual-licensing approach -in which all releases were available under GPL and redistributors could -choose to pay for a proprietary license exempting them from GPL -obligations. - -% TODO This is about Artifex rather than Aladdin - the change happened -% after the product was transferred to a new company! -Attorney and author Lawrence Rosen, who discussed GhostScript's model in -his book on open source licensing, told us that Artifex eventually -concluded that the GPL was unpalatable enough to commercial embedded -developers --- the entities that were typically already paying for -proprietary licenses or that could be induced to pay for violations of -GhostScript's copyright --- that the delay in making GhostScript available -under the GPL did not significantly change these companies' incentives to pay -for licenses. -% Sorry for the super-long sentence. I'm sure we'll break that up somehow. +project.\footnote{CITE} This is a commonly cited motivation for adopting DOSP. + +Interestingly, GhostScript's makers eventually dropped the delay in favor of +dual-licensing.\footnote{CITE and add date} With this approach, they +simultaneously release GhostScript under both a proprietary license and GPL. +They continue to use this model today, though they have replaced GPL with +AGPL.\footnote{See \otsurl{https://ghostscript.com/licensing/index.html}.} They determined +that their market of commercial, embedded developers were paying to avoid the +A/GPL, and that the time-delay did not significantly change these companies' +incentives to pay for licenses.\footnote{CITE to Rosen's book?} + + % Rosen also says that sendmail may have had a dual license in the same % era or even before Ghostscript. I found references to sendmail having % a "traditional" dual license but so far have not found references to a % scheduled relicensing practice. -Another important software project committed to a form of DOSP as a minimum -guarantee. As part of the controversies surrounding adoption of the Qt library -by the KDE project, various Qt copyright holders agreed to DOSP practices -as a contractual backstop to ensure that future versions of Qt remain -usable in free software. A series of contracts between Qt copyright holders and -a KDE community nonprofit entity (the ``KDE Free Qt Foundation") include commitments -to release future Qt versions under specific license terms with a ``within a timeframe -of not more than 12 months" relative to any proprietary -release.\footnote{See \otsurl{https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation/}, -which includes the exact language of the licensors' contractual commitments; -a portion of the historical context is described in -\otsurl{https://tinf2.vub.ac.be/$\sim$dvermeir/manual/KDE20Development-html/ch19lev1sec4.html}.} -These rights to delay the application of the free software license have not -% TODO - ever? to what extent? -usually -% TODO -been exercised in practice; Qt versions have generally been promptly -licensed under the required licenses. The possibility of a delay together -with a specific timeframe represented a compromise between the Qt developers' -and KDE developers' views of their respective interests. +Another early example of DOSP is KDE's Qt library, which committed to a form of +DOSP as a minimum guarantee. KDE is a desktop environment built using the Qt +GUI library. Over the years, the company that produces Qt, Trolltech, has +experimented with a variety of public collaboration approaches that includes a +mix of FOSS and not-quite FOSS, commercial approaches. + +When KDE adopted Qt as its GUI toolkit, "lock-in" concerns about reliance on a +codebase owned by a commercial company led to a series of agreements between a +KDE nonprofit and Trolltech. The original license allowed the KDE Free +Qt Foundation to release a version of Qt under BSD license if Trolltech +substantially stopped Qt development for more than a year.\footnote{See +\otsurl{https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation}.} Moreover, a +series of contracts between KDE's nonprofit and successive Qt copyright +holders include commitments to release Qt versions under specific license terms +``within a timeframe of not more than 12 months" relative to any proprietary +release.\footnote{See \textit{id.}, which includes the exact language of the +licensors' contractual commitments; a portion of the historical context is also +described in \otsurl{https://tinf2.vub.ac.be/$\sim$dvermeir/manual/KDE20Development-html/ch19lev1sec4.html}.} + +In practice, we didn't found any documentatary evidence of significant time +delay. That is, while the agreements allow a lag between proprietary release +and FOSS (or Qt/Free license) release, it appears that in practice this lag has +been insignificant or non-existent.\footnote{CITE? TODO: maybe we can ask the KDE +folks if this is true?} The agreements established minimal standards for the +protection of KDE, but Qt's various copyright holders appear to have generally +exceeded those standards. In this case, DOSP was a fall-back scenario for a +conditions that never arose. + +KDE and GhostScript are the two earliest projects we found making documented use +of DOSP. They use them in different ways, but both appear to contemplate DOSP +as a way to protect a period of proprietary commercial exploitation. As we will +see from later projects, this is the most common use of DOSP. \numberedsection{Scheduled Relicensing}\label{scheduled}