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A comment on Show HN: MongoDB Protocol for SQLite. Parent comment

Re:Show HN: MongoDB Protocol for SQLite by pritambaral on Wednesday July 05, 2023 @03:33AM (#36596920)
The SSPL is a murky license of questionable validity. The SSPL text itself is an unlicensed plagiarism of the AGPL [1]. The abuse of copyright law[2] that the SSPL explicitly demands might make it neither a valid license nor a valid contract [3]. What happens when the license covering your use of certain software turns out to be invalid? Well, in the eyes of the law, its as if you never had a license in the first place.

That's a lot of legal risk for your commercial project.

1: https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists....

2: https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists....

3: https://www.processmechanics.com/2018/10/18/the-server-side-...

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Re:Show HN: MongoDB Protocol for SQLite by jkaplowitz on Wednesday July 05, 2023 @06:11AM (#36598231)
Copyright misuse, as per one of your links, is a defense to an infringement claim that is recognized under certain conditions in part but not all of the US - it does not invalidate the license, it invalidates the licensor’s lawsuit.

But yes, it’s still a mess of a license that creates a lot of legal uncertainty for potential licensees, especially if a particular court decides that the copyright misuse defense doesn’t apply but that unclean hands does apply to the licensee for taking a license without intent to comply (e.g. because of having already concluded that compliance was impracticable or impossible).

Definitely best to avoid the SSPL and software licensed under it.

[ Parent | on HN ]