Common Public Attribution License (CPAL)

Yesterday we withdrew both the Socialtext Public License (STPL) and the Generic Attribution Provision (GAP) from consideration by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). We remain committed to following the process by either getting a MPL + Attribution license approved by OSI (variants of which are in use by over 20 commercial open source application companies), or choosing another OSI approved license. Until this process is complete, we will not use the OSI Certified mark, but we will refer to our products as open source as the STPL is consistent with OSD. Our position is unique in taking the risk to follow the licensing process, but the right risk is always worth taking.

We have been working on a new license, the Common Public Attribution License (CPAL), based on feedback from OSI-discuss. It will, among other things:

• Be based on MPL
• Be anonymized (removing Socialtext from the name of the license, encouraging further adoption)
• Be templatized (making it easier to adopt)
• Use the External Deployment clause from OSL, with permission from Larry Rosen
• Have an attribution clause that only requires equal treatment

In doing so, we are trying to go beyond simply meeting the Open Source Definition (specifically OSD #10), but also trying to be a model for how open source licensing should be performed. This involves a lot of detailed work, within the license and explaining it. We will apply it to our products and submit it to OSI, but in trying to make it useful for other projects and products we have to work through scenarios beyond Socialtext use so this will take time. We should share this soon, but wanted to note why we are extending an already lengthy timeline on our own.

Comments

[Kirrily Robert]

Yay! This is great news. The more generalised a license you have, the more acceptance you'll get from the community.

[alexis]

Ross, by Have an attribution clause that only requires equal treatment - do you mean some sort of principle of mutual assurance of good behaviour?

[Ross Mayfield]

That's a good way to describe it, Alexis.