You are not Monero, but you seem to be assuming some kind of official capacity. Who authorised you to issue any proposals on behalf of Monero community?
I don’t think any decision is going to be made because of point 1, people here are simply expressing their own personal opinions on the matter.
That’s rich; so all those tweets screenshotted in this topic weren’t written by you? Or were you tired and emotional while writing them?
Watch Zcash Arborist Calls. Perhaps @kaybaNerve will be both familiar enough with them and not angry enough with your tweets to give you a timestamp.
The ECC and the Zebra project remain the only ones who can use the Orchard code
Other open source projects realistically can’t use this “open source” Orchard code, since no one else uses nor wants to use the BOSL license, unless specific projects were to get a special exception issued by the Electric Coin Company
Monero will likely build its own code to do the same thing if they desired to go this route
This largely necessitates those interested in Halo 2 and Orchard to write their own code, or to have a relationship with the ECC like the Filecoin Foundation does
Companies can’t use this code unless they retain the BOSL license or get a special exception
Keep Orchard BOSL, make special exception for Monero (and possibly other projects)
Monero could implement this copyleft code if desired
The ECC signals they are willing support FOSS projects with these special exceptions
Everything else stays the same as the status quo
Release as MIT like the rest of the Zcash codebase
Everyone can use it, Monero and companies included
Zcash no longer uses some isolated dual-license
All further licensing discussions are no longer necessary
I personally would prefer the last option, since I don’t really agree with the justification for the awkward license in the first place. I also don’t think granting Monero a special exception would do anything to undermine the stated reasons for the license to prevent corporate capture. Of course, the ECC would likely prefer to have more say over how its efforts are used by others, and they may only be willing to publish code under a restrictive license.
It’s not an option to simply re-license the Orchard BOSL code as GPL, since there would still need to be a special exception for the ECC and ZF. Thus we would be back to square one.
At worst you will have other members that will react even more emotionally, which is already used by @sethforprivacy to put out an agenda that you are anti-FOSS (see my point on MobileCoin).
Can you get consensus from Monero community if they are really interested in integrating Orchard. I think we can resume conversation to talk about exception?
You may not believe it, but I was exactly the same opinion a year ago))
Only conversations with @zooko helped me to take a more or less middle position about PoS.
Why do we need community consensus before we get an exception? IMO it’s important projects who want to build on/integrate with Zcash’s code be aware of the licensing implications before they explore integrating it officially.
This is one of the clear negatives of a license like this, I need to follow this process and come here to get a “special exception” before I can even know if I could use the code down the line. This process would be absolutely unnecessary if Halo 2/Orchard were MIT like the rest of Zcash, but this is the license that was chosen so I’m trying to play by your rules and explore the implications before we explore the possibility of using this further.
IMO the onus to provide clarity is on Zcash here due to the restrictive license, not for every project who wants an exception to have everything aligned not knowing if they can even use the code.
No, Zcash doesn’t owe you anything, the licence is perfectly clear. Why do you want special treatment as opposed to just waiting for the code to become FOSS?
Between a project that isnt aligned with Zcash to a project where the devs, contributers, moderators, community leaders. and influencers actively spread lies, smears and conspiracies about Zcash lays many galaxies of space… and within that space, even more.
The replies that he is fishing for here is “screw you, it is our tech” - which he then will take to do his twitter shtick how Zcash is against open source.
Let’s not give him that. Most members here, myself included, support MIT licence. That doesn’t mean giving “special exceptions” to people that come here begging for them after smearing the project.
How very convenient that you couldn’t think of a 4th option, the one that would likely benefit Zcash the most, and the one most of the Zcash community would probably be happy with:
Keep Orchard under the BOSL license for the time being, no exceptions for anyone
Activate NU5
After activation, absolute focus on capitalising on (community funded) Orchard to drive mass adoption for ZEC as to not give away 1st mover’s advantage for nothing. At the end of the day, both Monero and Zcash may be after the noble cause of bringing financial privacy for the masses, but they do compete for market share.
Only then allow Orchard to be MIT-licensed so no exceptions need to be made for anyone from then on.
Tbh, this request by Seth and Justin seems loaded: if the Zcash community agrees to the exception, they get the medal for it, and if it doesn’t, they get ammo to continue to question ethics surrounding Zcash through high engagement social media postst pandering to the Monero pitchforks. After all relevance and visibility within the community have always seemed of utter importance to both of them.
A lot better if we focus on allowing Zcash to rip the benefits of the community funded R&D. Let’s put Zcash first.
Zcash community has always tried to do things that where slightly different from the general prevalent norm either in FOSS or crypto space. The dev fund idea in 2016 was something which was never done before and we can see how successful the model is.
ECC has is now spear heading BOSL and from what I understand it has not been tested before. Maybe it is time for Zcash to once again set the standard. The idea of BOSL has been decided for a while and it seems wrong to give in to the temper tactics at the last minute. It will eventually convert to complete open source at which point everyone is free to use it.
If during this period, we realize that BOSL was not the current way to license software, the next updates can be with the standard MIT License. Maybe Zcash will again be a pioneer to build sustainable technology and other crypto projects will also benefit from taking the BOSL approach. Every crypto project faces the threat of code forks and maybe BOSL will be the standard going forward. Only way to find out is to test it.
The biggest risk with this approach is a smear campaign by Monero folks but I personally don’t think that it will stop either way whether an exception is granted or not. Also if see the other communities / developers don’t want to build on Zcash because of the license, then again we can go back to the MIT license in the future but I personally think this fear is overblown.
So you’re recommending weaponizing BOSL to essentially make Zcash’s Orchard upgrade “source available” (not open-source by any definition of the term) until you feel that you’ve sufficiently benefited from the code, and then going open-source via MIT at some point once you deem it can in no way be used to compete with Zcash?
You even clearly state you want to leverage BOSL to grant Zcash a “1st mover’s advantage” over other open-source projects instead of providing the code and research to the broader open-source community.
How does that align with the spirit of open-source or many of the founding principles of Bitcoin, Zcash, Monero, etc?
Edit: Toned down the initial response and clarified quite a few points.
To be clear there is currently no guarantee that Orchard will ever be MIT or permissively licensed in any way, thus the need for the “special exception” process at this time.
No, there is no need for anything. At least not on Zcash side. Please start acting maturely and respect the advancements that the team gave you already. You are not special. Wait your turn for MIT licence like everyone else.
So very manipulative of you to put words in my mout Seth. I’m only recommending for things to stay as they are for the time being.
But good to see how you have already started to try and twist the very legit sentiment of the community, to continue to make waves questioning Zcash’s ethics.
Read the linked post. It clearly says it will become open source after a limited period of time. Please keep the disinformation limited to your twitter handle.
