Licence choice of version proxy, licence stewardship

Several of the recent FSF licences have a `licence proxy' feature,
where the copyrightholders can name a proxy who will decide whether
new versions of the relevant licence apply. And it sometimes arises
that projects want to change licence and this can be very difficult
otherwise.

So I think the licence proxy feature is useful and I think it can
usefully be simulated and generalised. I think one thing that SPI
could usefully do would be to act as a `choice of licence proxy'.

I think this kind of arrangement might make a better alternative to
copyright assignment to SPI.

I was thinking something along these lines:

DRAFT COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Gnomovision - a program to reveal invisible gnomes
Copyright (C) 2007 Ian Jackson

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of version 3 of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation.

You may also redistribute and/or modify this program under any
licence which is has been publicly endorsed by the Free Software
Foundation as a free software licence, and which has also been
publicly endorsed by Software in the Public Interest (SPI) as a
suitable licence for this particular work.

Therefore currently (by virtue of Board Resolution
2008-12-01.spqr.1 of by Software in the Public Interest) you may
also distribute this program according to the GNU Affero General
Public Licence, version 3.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the licences along with this
program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

DRAFT SPECIMEN LICENCE ENDORSEMENT RESOLUTION 2008-12-01.spqr.1

WHEREAS

1. SPI has the authority to approve an alternative licence
for Gnomovision, and it has been suggested that we do so.

2. Further to our Position and Promises Regarding Intellectual
Property, we have consulted with available past and present
developers.

3. We have concluded that the following change has the project's
contributors' rough consensus approval, and is in the interests
of the project's developers and users, and of the Free Software
community as a whole.

THEREFORE

4. We hereby endorse the GNU Affero General Public Licence
version 3 as a suitable licence for all versions of
Gnomovision.

5. This endorsement applies irrevocably to the current version,
and all past versions of Gnomovision. It also applies
irrevocably to all contributions to Gnomovision in the future,
except that if Software in the Public Interest revokes this
endorsement the endorsement does not apply to contributions
made to Gnomovision after the endorsement is revoked.

What do people think ?

Is SPI now sufficiently stable and robust that this would work without
putting SPI under undue stress ?

Ian.

Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote: [...]
> What do people think ?
>
> Is SPI now sufficiently stable and robust that this would work without
> putting SPI under undue stress ?

It seems like a worthwhile task for SPI and a way to keep Licence
choice of version in developer hands, while still delegating it from a
particular developer.

I think SPI is sufficiently stable - the officers seem to have started
reporting consistently at last - but I wouldn't like to describe it as
robust until we complete another year of routine operation without a
crisis.

I doubt there will be widespread member support for this sort of finer
point of licensing/organisations policy, but maybe I'm wrong...?

Thanks,
--
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237