Collaborative Virtual Workspace License (CVW)

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 06:38:16PM +0200, Loic Dachary wrote:
> 	After thinking a while I came to the conclusion that the
> Collaborative Virtual Workspace License (CVW)
> http://cvw.mitre.org/cvw/licenses/source/license.html is not a Free
> Software license for the following reason.
> 
> General (5) 
> "In either case, if you transmit source code improvements or modifications to MITRE, you agree to assign to MITRE copyright to such improvements or modifications, which MITRE will then make available from MITRE's web site."
> 
> 	This sentence allows the following scenario:
> 
> 	- you make modifications
> 	- you assign copyright to MITRE
> 	- MITRE releases your modifications under a non free software license
> 	  and publish them on their web site
> 	- you are not allowed to use your own code
> 	- you have to remove your own modifications from your machine
> 
> 	I know this is unlikely but it's permitted by the license. Therefore
> the freedom to modify the software is crippled, hence the license is not
> Free Software.
> 
> 	Do you see any flaw in this logic ? 

Depending on the usual local interpretation of the clause
you have quoted it could mean that they want a non-exclusive 
right to copy and sublicense the source code. This would break your
chain of reason.

I wanted to recheck the rest of the license, but found the URL dead.
The only information about the license for CVW I can find on the new
webpage is that it is in the Public Domain now and thus Free Software.
Strange...

http://cvw.sourceforge.net/

...
| So in order to accommodate everyone equally, we felt the best means
| to accomplish the transfer of CVW is by ceding the software to the
| public domain. This was felt to be the solution most in line with
| our role as a public interest company. 
...

| Last update: 12 February 2001
| 
| This work, including the source code, documentation and related
| data, is placed into the public domain. 
| The original author is The MITRE Corporation. 


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