Add guidance to clarify Commons Clause representation

[yv]

It should be made clear that CommonsClause-licensed software should not use the name of the license that it borrows its other terms from.

E.g. it's possible to create a "Commons Clause license based on conditions from the Apache License v2.0", but due to the fact that Commons Clause takes away the rights that an open source licensee would have, it's confusing and dishonest to use terms such as "Apache license with Commons Clause". Using the name of the Apache License also suggests that such software can be incorporated into Apache Software Foundation projects, which is decidedly not the case (only liberal-use open source is allowed) - see https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html

This is different from, e.g., "GPL with class path exception" or from "Affero GPL" and "Lesser GPL" reusing the GPL name because CommonsClause is designed to build a noncommercial-only shared source license by using terms from a permissive open source license, not adding to the rights of software users but taking away enough to cross category boundaries.

The main point is: shared-source licenses are a perfectly fine option for licensing software in general (just like CC-*-NC is a suitable alternative for non-software works), but the license should be presented as such and confusion with open source avoided.

Considering that the number of open source licenses that may inspire a CommonsClause license is relatively small, it may be most helpful to find specific names for them, e.g.

• CommonsClause with Patent Grant (based on terms from the Apache License)

[xizhao]

Thanks @yv.

I like the idea having a standard guidance on how to represent how commons clause should be and I think your suggestion makes a lot of sense:

CommonsClause with Patent Grant (based on terms from the Apache License)

I think any effort to help people understand the distinction for users consuming CommonsClause software would be appreciated by everyone. I think our priority here is to state this is not open source and does not follow the OSD and is applied to take an OSS project OUT of an OSD licensing model.

[ShaneCurcuru]

Thanks @yv for stating this clearly. I agree that having clear guidance from FOSSA on use of this new license restriction, including ways to describe the license as a whole would solve a lot of headaches, both for users and license writers.

From my personal perspective, any new name is fine. Not using the name of the underlying (?*) license in any prominent way is super important, both to prevent confusion and to prevent existing license holders from having to expend effort to stop the use of their trademarks in confusing ways.

In particular, I expect the Apache Software Foundation will list any Commons Clause variants to be on the ASF's Category-X list, meaning that Commons Clause-licensed software cannot be included in any Apache® projects.

• "Underlying license" is not really a great description either, but I couldn't figure out a better word. From what I can tell, Commons Clause licensed software is provided under a new license that includes the text of Commons Clause along with (presumably) the whole text of an existing license. While the resulting physical words may merely be copying the two chunks of text together, from a usability standpoint, it really feels like the meaning of the entirety is a completely new thing; thus meaning having a completely new name would be best.