Peer Production License

About

http://p2pfoundation.net/Peer_Production_License

PPL License.

A Fake Open Source license, not consistent with OSHWA or OSI definition.

Essentially, PPL is a proprietary consortium in disguise, where the proprietors are the members of a cooperative or collective.

Coops and collectives are in theory nice, but if they are proprietary, they do not contribute to the open source economy. They are not Distributive Enterprises.

Coops and collectives provide clearly-visible economic incentive to their members, whereas Open Source enterprises provide less cearly-visible economic incentives. This does not mean that the economic incentive of Open Source enterprise is smaller - it is just less visible to the uninitiated.

Terms

Specifically, it must be noted that in 4.c. the restriction in the PPL is:

c. You may exercise the rights granted in Section 3 for commercial purposes only if:
i. You are a worker-owned business or worker-owned collective; and
ii. all financial gain, surplus, profits and benefits produced by the business or collective are distributed among the worker-owners

This may be interpreted as the PPL license not only does not require - OSHWA/OSI - it DISALLOWS OSHWA/OSI-compliant use. This is because an open license is disqualified because of the PPL terms that diallow free economic use as in Open Source licenses. This is a major flaw in terms of its distributive intent and should be corrected if this license is to contribute to open source economics.