Open Source and Academia
bastian.rieck.me
bastian.rieck.me
The CRAPL is one of the worst licenses you can pick. (Note that the author's claim that it's open-source is a lie.) Literally any of the licenses on the page linked to by "confused by the many licenses out there" would be better than it is. That advice is like saying "if an orphanage is on fire and you can only make one trip inside, and it's hard to decide who to save, just save the pet hamster instead of any of the orphans."
(NB: Matt refers to this as an open source license)
> 1. By reading this sentence, You have agreed to the terms and conditions of this License.
Hopefully it's obvious what's wrong with this.
Here's the other bad parts of the license, along with some of what makes them bad:
> 1. You are permitted to use the Program to validate published scientific claims.
> 2. You are permitted to use the Program to validate scientific claims submitted for peer review, under the condition that You keep modifications to the Program confidential until those claims have been published.
> 3. You are permitted to use and/or modify the Program for the validation of novel scientific claims if You make a good-faith attempt to notify the Author of Your work and Your claims prior to submission for publication.
> 4. If You publicly release any claims or data that were supported or generated by the Program or a modification thereof, in whole or in part, You will release any inputs supplied to the Program and any modifications You made to the Progam. This License will be in effect for the modified program.
The Free Software Definition says this:
> The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity.
This license violates that in two different ways. It only lets you use the program to validate scientific claims, and it also requires you to communicate about it with the developer if the claims are novel.
It also says this:
> Freedom to distribute (freedoms 2 and 3) means you are free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission to do so.
This license violates that by prohibiting you from redistributing modified copies if you made the modification to validate scientific claims that haven't yet been published.
The Open Source Definition says this:
> The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
This license violates that the same way it violates Freedom 0, by only letting you use the program to validate scientific claims.
It also says this:
> The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.
This license violates that the same way it violates Freedom 3, by prohibiting you from redistributing modified copies if you made the modification to validate scientific claims that haven't yet been published.