GIVE BACK SOFTWARE LICENCE
Version 0.1 (DRAFT)
DRAFT. No lawyer has reviewed this text. It has not been assessed for
enforceability in any jurisdiction. The name is not final. It is published
so that it can be argued with. Do not apply it to real software.
Canonical version and the reasoning behind each clause:
https://oosl.org/licence/
0. APPLICATION
This Addendum applies in addition to, and does not replace, the base
licence identified by the Licensor (the "Base Licence"). All permissions
granted by the Base Licence are granted subject to the condition in
section 3. Where this Addendum and the Base Licence conflict, the Base
Licence prevails except as to section 3, which is a condition of the
permissions granted.
1. DEFINITIONS
1.1 "Covered Software" means software made available under this Addendum.
1.2 "You" means the legal entity exercising permissions under this
Addendum, together with all entities that control, are controlled by,
or are under common control with that entity.
1.3 "Declaration" means a document satisfying section 3.
1.4 "Declaration Period" means any period of twelve consecutive months
selected by You, provided the periods You select are contiguous.
1.5 "Maintainer Profile" means a document published by a Licensor
describing itself, satisfying section 5.
1.6 "Publicly Available" means retrievable over the public internet by any
person, without authentication, payment, registration, or agreement to
terms.
1.7 "Publicly Registered Component" means a software component that is
itself Publicly Available from a package registry or source repository.
1.8 "The Standard" means the guidance document published at the address
given in section 8. The Standard is not part of this Addendum.
2. GRANT
Subject to section 3, You are granted the permissions set out in the Base
Licence.
3. THE DECLARATION REQUIREMENT
3.1 For each Declaration Period in which You exercise any permission under
this Addendum, You must make a Declaration Publicly Available within
ninety days of the end of that period.
3.2 A Declaration must state, in a machine-readable form:
(a) the identity of the declaring entity, and an address at which it
may be contacted;
(b) the Declaration Period covered;
(c) the Publicly Registered Components relied upon by You during the
period, and, so far as ascertainable by You from Publicly
Available sources, the maintainer of each;
(d) what, if anything, You contributed during the period toward the
maintenance of those components or of software generally, and to
whom;
(e) a statement, authored by You, of why You consider the
contributions described in (d) to be appropriate in light of the
reliance described in (c); and
(f) the date on which the Declaration was published.
3.3 The content of a Declaration is not prescribed. No minimum
contribution is required. A Declaration stating that You contributed
nothing satisfies subsection 3.2(d) in full, and a statement under
subsection 3.2(e) is sufficient whatever its reasoning. No person may
assess, score, approve or reject a Declaration under this Addendum.
3.4 A single Declaration may satisfy this section in respect of all
Covered Software relied upon by You, however many Licensors are
involved.
3.5 A Declaration must remain Publicly Available for at least five years
from its date of publication.
4. WHERE THE DECLARATION IS PUBLISHED
4.1 A Declaration is Publicly Available for the purposes of this Addendum
if it is retrievable at the path /.well-known/give-back.json on a
domain controlled by You and reasonably associated with You.
4.2 Publication elsewhere also satisfies section 3 if the Declaration is
Publicly Available and can be found by a person of ordinary diligence
looking for it.
4.3 You are not required to submit a Declaration to any registry, index,
directory or other person. No such submission is a condition of any
permission granted.
5. RECIPROCAL OBLIGATION ON THE LICENSOR
5.1 A Licensor distributing Covered Software under this Addendum must make
a Maintainer Profile Publicly Available, stating: the identity of the
maintaining entity; whether it is a for-profit entity, a not-for-profit
entity, or unincorporated; the approximate number of people
maintaining the software, expressed as a band; whether any of them are
paid to do so; and any addresses at which contributions may be
directed.
5.2 If a Licensor fails to make a Maintainer Profile Publicly Available,
Your obligations under section 3 are suspended in respect of that
Licensor's software for so long as the failure continues.
5.3 The suspension in 5.2 operates only in respect of the Licensor from
whom You received the software directly, and does not extend along a
chain of Licensors.
6. WITHHOLDING
6.1 Where publishing a particular detail otherwise required by section 3
would place You in breach of law, or would create a demonstrable
security risk, You may omit that detail.
6.2 Where You omit a detail under 6.1, the Declaration must state that a
detail has been omitted and which subsection it relates to. It need
not state what was omitted, and need not state how much was omitted.
6.3 Nothing in section 3 requires You to disclose the existence, number,
nature or purpose of software that is not a Publicly Registered
Component.
7. BREACH, CURE AND REINSTATEMENT
7.1 Failure to publish a Declaration as required by section 3 is a breach
of this Addendum. Nothing in the content of a Declaration is capable
of constituting a breach.
7.2 On breach, the permissions granted under section 2 are suspended.
7.3 Permissions are reinstated automatically and retroactively if the
breach is cured within thirty days of You becoming aware of it,
whether or not You were notified.
7.4 Permissions are reinstated permanently if a Licensor notifies You of
the breach and You cure it within thirty days of that notice, unless
that Licensor has previously notified You of a breach of this
Addendum.
8. THE STANDARD
8.1 Guidance on the preparation of Declarations is published as The
Standard, at https://oosl.org/standard/.
8.2 The Standard is not incorporated into this Addendum and imposes no
obligation. It may be revised at any time. No revision of The Standard
alters this Addendum, and departing from The Standard is not a breach.
8.3 Software that generates, assists in generating, or publishes
Declarations does not create the obligation in section 3. That
obligation applies whether or not any such software is used, present,
or functional.
9. NO ENDORSEMENT
This Addendum grants no right to use the name, trade marks or logos of any
Licensor, or of the publisher of The Standard, and publication of a
Declaration implies no approval, certification or endorsement by any
person.
10. VERSIONS
10.1 You may comply with the version of this Addendum under which the
software was made available to You, or any later version.
10.2 A later version cannot impose an obligation beyond the publication of
a Declaration meeting section 3.
11. DISCLAIMER
The warranty disclaimers and limitations of liability in the Base Licence
apply to this Addendum. Nothing in a Declaration constitutes a
representation or warranty to any person.
HOW TO APPLY IT
In your LICENSE file:
This software is licensed under , as modified by the
Give Back Software Licence Addendum version 0.1, the text of which
follows / is available at https://oosl.org/licence/
Then publish a maintainer profile at:
https:///.well-known/maintainer.json
You do not need anyone's permission to use this text, and there is nothing
to register. It is offered under CC BY 4.0 precisely so that it can be
adopted, forked or renamed by anyone.