Suggestion to add an alternate OSI-recognized license scheme

[ovaillancourt]

Hi!

Our company is currently performing a legal audit of our engineering / technology department and chai-as-promised was flagged as problematic open source dependency due to the WTFPL license.

I was wondering if you might consider adding an alternate license scheme that has been recognized by the OSI board, similar to what was done with https://github.com/domenic/path-is-inside.

I'd gladly submit a PR to spare you the trouble if you're open to the change.

Thanks for your time and keep up the great work!

[domenic]

Sure, a PR would be welcome.

[cessem1]

@domenic any chance this can get merged? I am having the same issue as @ovaillancourt .

[cessem1]

@domenic I've created a new PR to update the license to MIT : #258

[maheshsenni]

@domenic From a different company but same situation and this would help us a lot. Would you be able to take a look at the PR please? If you prefer a different license, I can submit a new PR.

[jwilso48]

@domenic I'm at a different company as well and I'm in the same situation. Would it be possible to use an FSF-approved, similarly lax license, like X11?

[benlangfeld]

Same for me. Any news @domenic ?

[benlangfeld]

path-is-inside was licensed in the same way (dual MIT & WTFPL) @ domenic/path-is-inside#5

[lognaturel]

@43081j @domenic Would really appreciate this too! We're an Apache 2.0 open source project but try keep our license story really clear and OSI/FSF-approved.

[43081j]

i suppose without getting every contributor to agree to a license change, our option is limited to dual licensing?

WTFPL & MIT

i don't imagine any of us have anything against that if someone wants to open a PR

@keithamus @koddsson thoughts? licensing is a bit of a grey area for me

[benlangfeld]

@43081j #258

[lognaturel]

https://github.com/chaijs/chai-as-promised/pull/258/files looks like it would nicely suit the needs!

our option is limited to dual licensing?

My understanding is that the WTFPL truly intends to let anyone do anything with the work which should include re-licensing.

[keithamus]

WTFPL doesn't allow relicensing unless you rename the project (or of course the copyright holder changes the license). Having said that if we can get the okay from @domenic to change it to MIT (or dual license) then I think we can go ahead with MIT which I believe the rest of the chai projects are under.

[lognaturel]

According to the FAQ at http://www.wtfpl.net/faq/: "The WTFPL lets you relicense the work under any other license." But I think you may be right that this may conflict with copyright laws.

My understanding is that the license text

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim or modified
copies of this license document, and changing it is allowed as long
as the name is changed.

is about the license itself, not the work under license. So if you want to change the 0th clause to remove the "just", you have to call it WTFPL2 or something like that.

[domenic]

I think I gave the OK already in #176 (comment).