this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
22 points (89.3% liked)

Open Source

39350 readers
343 users here now

All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!

Useful Links

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
Cloak@lemmy.ml
kevincox@lemmy.ml
CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml
Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml
22
How would the open source and free software world be affected if most or all software were released under the Sybase OpenWattcom Public License (SOWPL)? (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 month ago by EON_GuG@lemm.ee to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
6 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This license has the peculiarity that any software implementation requires you to offer the source code, even if you only plan to use it privately. This makes it a stronger license than the AGPL in terms of copyleft. If the AGPL already scares away almost all companies, the SOWPL scares away almost everyone.

My question is, what would happen if free and/or open source software had the SOWPL? Would projects have to be forked? Would free and open source software die? Would we have to start from scratch again or hire lawyers to avoid problems?

I would like to know your response to this fictional scenario.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] RavuAlHemio@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

To my knowledge, there has been some discussion regarding the AGPL as to whether using software through a network even creates the kind of legal relationship between provider and client such that the client has standing to request the source code. I assume similar discussions would crop up regarding the SOWPL.