Talk:Sybase Open Watcom Public License

This article was nominated for deletion on July 6, 2006. The result of the discussion was article made saving throw; kept.

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Untitled[edit]

This article seems to contain nothing but marketing quotes and excerpts from the license in question; what little of actual content is present is obviously factually wrong.

For example, while the freeness of a license is often a point of heated political discussion, the GPL-compatibility is totally out of question. For example:

SOWPL has a click-wrap clause.
It forces an user to distribute any private modifications to the whole world. The GPL requires making the source available only to those you distribute the binary to.
SOWPL forces the user to keep distributing any modifications for a long period after any use ceases. The GPL allows distributing only for the period when you distribute the binary.
If your organization/company has any patents, not just software patents related to the software in question but any patent, such as a patent for a mousetrap or a drug, any use or distribution of covered software effectively makes those patents void, even for the purposes of fighting patent trolls.
There is a choice of venue clause. Anyone who is a defendant in a litigation, even a completely frivolous suit, is forced to travel to California.

-- all of these issues are restrictions over what is required by the GPL, and thus make the license incompatible.

I can't see how someone who wants to appear as a professional reviewer could fail to notice even one of these problems, and thus I assume that the current contents of the article are a troll.

Thus, it appears to me that the current article has nothing of redeeming value, and I'm not versed in legal matter good enough to write a proper replacement. --KiloByte 20:01, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The original version of this article appears to have been an original analysis of the licence, composed directly here in Wikipedia, by Hannah Joseph. I've started afresh and given you a stub encyclopaedia article to work with, instead. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 20:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does this meet FSF criteria?[edit]

Does anyone know if FSF have commented on this licence? Or does anyone know of someone who has read the licence and judged whether it is a free software licence by FSF's criteria? Gronky 11:42, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Debian Free Software criteria[edit]

The license is certainly problematic for Debian. They consider it not to be DFSG free[1].

My view is this lack of DFSG compliance should be recorded, along with other issues. Perhaps a section entitled "controversy" would be appropriate. 84.143.84.234 (talk) 07:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Error in assertion about private use.[edit]

I've just read the License.txt from the ftp of openwatcom.org, and it clearly says that 'Deploy' means to use the supplied software (the compiler) or any code edited or derived from it in any distributed capacity, commercial or otherwise. It states clearly (at least twice) that the term 'Deploy' does not apply to private use, even edits or derivations. It looks as if they just don't want people distributing variants of it unless others can see exactly what changed. If these changes are a result of research and development done by a business entity, it is still not considered as 'Deployment' if no distribution occurs. These terms are reasonable because if no-one ever knows, it could not be enforcible anyway, and I imagine they (and their lawyers) are not that stupid. :)

It seems to me that the license is clear (if a bit long), and not nearly as limiting as some seem to claim. It seems to me to be aimed at protecting the integrity of the compiler itself, so it can be trusted, and any code (open, closed, or compiled) that is based on the work originating with Sybase must be open for audit by anyone who wants to be able to use and trust the compiler.

As far as any program I write entirely for myself, whether commercial or not, open source or not, compiled or not, they make no mention of it, so I assume that if I create my own program and choose to use their compiler to convert my own code to an executable program, they place no restriction on me at all, other than to warn me that it's like an OEM part, and that I am responsible for my code, and under no circumstances can I claim fitness for any purpose based on the compiler or any trust anyone chooses to place in it. While they offer the tools and help, they're telling me I'm on my own regarding responsibility for my own work, and that's the way they seem to like it, so I doubt they're trying to control how I distribute my own code. 81.187.19.110 (talk) 09:34, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]