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Many people in the Free Software / Open Source community feel that Software Patent s are harmful to software, and are particularly harmful to Open Source software {Link without Title} . The OSL attempts to counteract that by creating a pool of software which a user can use if that user does not harm it by attack of it with a patent lawsuit. AUTHOR Lawrence Rosen created the Open Software License , which is certified as an Open Source license by the Open Source Initiative . KEY FEATURES Patent action termination clause The OSL has a termination clause intended to dissuade users from filing patent infringement lawsuits: :10) ''Termination for Patent Action.'' This License shall terminate automatically and You may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License as of the date You commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim, against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work infringes a patent. This termination provision shall not apply for an action alleging patent infringement by combinations of the Original Work with other software or hardware. Warranty of provenance Another goal of the OSL is to warrant provenance {Link without Title} . :7) ''Warranty of Provenance and Disclaimer of Warranty.'' Licensor warrants that the copyright in and to the Original Work and the patent rights granted herein by Licensor are owned by the Licensor or are sublicensed to You under the terms of this License with the permission of the contributor(s) of those copyrights and patent rights. COMPARISON WITH THE LGPL / GPL The OSL is intended to be similar to the LGPL {Link without Title} . Note that the definition of ''Derivative Works'' in the OSL does ''not'' cover linking to OSL software/libraries so software that merely links to OSL software is ''not'' subject to the OSL license. The OSL is not compatible with the GPL It has been claimed that the OSL is legally stronger than the GPL [http://www.airs.com/ian/essays/licensing/licensing.html , however, unlike the GPL, the OSL has never been tested in court and is not widely used. Assent to license The Free Software Foundation (FSF) claims all versions of the OSL have a term which requires that distributors should try to obtain explicit assent to the license. This restriction is contained in Section 9 of the OSL and reads: "If You distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work or a Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under the circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to the terms of this License." This requirement means that distributing OSL software on ordinary FTP sites, sending patches to ordinary mailing lists, or storing the software in an ordinary version control system, can arguably be a violation of the license and would subject violators to possible termination of the license. Thus, the OSL makes it challenging to develop software using the ordinary tools of Free Software development. Distribution If the FSF claim is true then the main difference between the GPL and OSL concerns possible restrictions on redistribution. Both licenses impose a kind of reciprocity condition requiring authors of extensions to the software to license those extensions with the respective license of the original work. The FSF fears that the OSL also restricts use of the software outside your organization; the FSF argues that making the software available for use over the Internet may require making the source code available. Patent action termination clause The patent action termination clause, described above, is a further significant difference between the OSL and GPL . FURTHER PROVISIONS
LATER VERSIONS It is optional, though common for the copyright holder to add “or any later version” to the distribution terms in order to allow distribution under future versions of the license. This term is not directly mentioned in the OSL. However, it would seem to violate section 16, which requires a verbatim copy of the license. OPEN SOFTWARE THAT USES THE OSL REFERENCES
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