Published on: 2016-09-27T19:17:07+00:00
In a Bitcoin developer email thread, Peter Todd expressed concerns about the Open Patent License (OPL) being more restrictive than the Bitcoin Core license and its potential impact on shipping documentation with code. He acknowledged that different licenses for documentation and code are common practice but emphasized that the issue lies in the OPL's significant restrictions. Peter suggested considering Luke's BIP2 revival proposal as a more formal solution. Tom, in response, recommended dual-licensing documentation with a code-oriented license if it includes example code. He also announced that his own BIP is now dual-licensed under the Creative Commons license. Peter appreciated the suggestion and agreed that CC-BY-SA is a suitable license for this purpose.A revision to BIP-1 proposes removing the option to license work under the OPL. The OPL contains clauses that allow licensors to prohibit print publication and creation of modified versions without their approval. These attribution requirements are considered too restrictive by Debian, leading them to not consider the OPL acceptable for works included in their distribution. Only two BIPs, BIP145 and BIP134, have used the OPL. It is noted that the OPL is significantly more restrictive than the Bitcoin Core license, which poses challenges if documentation cannot be shipped with the code.The proposal to revise BIP-1 aims to eliminate the option to license work under the OPL due to its problematic clauses. Instead, it suggests incorporating a permissive 2-clause BSD license as an alternative. The author of the proposal questions whether those involved in the project were aware of these clauses when including them. They believe that the OPL hinders a transparent, public, and collaborative process for developing interoperability standards. The project that created the OPL has recommended using Creative Commons licenses since 2007 as a more suitable alternative.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T19:05:11.027398+00:00