Free RewardRights License (FRRL)
"RewardRights" is intended as a contrast to the term "property rights", which provides a misleading intuition with regard to information goods. Legal frameworks for information goods which are based on the concept of "property rights" lead to severe injustices when applied to computer software and informative content which are essential for being able to participate, with a fair chance of success, in the globally-competitive economy of the information age. This category of information goods (computer software and informative content) is what the RewardRights licenses are primarily intended to be used for. (For works which are primarily intended as works of art, or as statements of opinion, it may be appropriate to use a Creative Commons license to reserve some rights in ways which are not supported by the RewardRights licenses.)
Discussion Draft 5 of Version 1 14 February 2008 This is not a published version of the Free RewardRights License.
Clearly labeling the document as "not a published version of the Free RewardRights License" is important for making clear that the reference to "any version ever published" in section 8 cannot be misunderstood as including discussion drafts.
Copyright (C) 2007, 2008 Bollow Software Economics Research Weidlistrasse 18, CH-8624 Gruet, Switzerland, http://bollow.ch
Steward of the RewardRights licenses will probably be tranferred to Adaptux GmbH when that organization has been established.
This license contains text from version 3 of the GNU General Public License copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. used with their permission. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Disallowing arbitrary license modifications is important to prevent confusion.The FSF has a good policy in disallowing arbitrary modification of the GPL, but allowing language from the GPL (but not the name "GNU GPL" or the preamble) to be re-used in creating new licenses, such as this one.
A similar policy will be applied to those parts of the text of the FRRL which are not taken from the GPL.
Many information goods are made available only under restrictive licenses which fail to grant users the essential rights to copy and redistribute the works in original or modified form. By contrast, for works which are licensed under this RewardRights License, everyone who has received a copy, and who complies with the terms of this license, has these rights. This Free RewardRights License does not impose any requirements on users and redistributers to make payments of any kind towards monetary rewards for their work. It is a Free Software license. However, if you modify an information good which is licensed under the terms of this license, you may place your modified version under a Non-Free RewardRights License which gives you rights to receive monetary rewards from commercial users of your work under certain conditions. These Non-Free RewardRights Licenses still ensure that all users have the essential rights to copy and redistribute the works in original or modified form, but since in specified situations there are monetary obligations for commercial users, the Non-Free RewardRights Licenses are not Free Software licenses. The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.
This preamble summarizes the main objectives of this license, especially with regard to pointing out the similarities to the GPL (the shared goal that all users should be free to copy and redistribute software and other information goods in original or modified form) as well as the key difference that this license allows to create modified versions which impose financial obligations of specified kinds of commercial use.Another goal of the preamble is to distance this license and the community that will grow around it from the FSF's highly ideological spirit, while working towards similar goals of personal end economic freedom.
0.0 "Copyright" also means copyright-like laws that apply to other kinds of works, such as semiconductor masks. 0.1 "The Work" refers to any copyrightable work licensed under this License. Each licensee is addressed as "you." "Licensees" and "recipients" may be individuals or organizations. 0.2 To "modify" a work means to copy from or adapt all or part of the work in a fashion requiring copyright permission, other than the making of an exact copy. The resulting work is called a "modified version" of the earlier work or a work "based on" the earlier work. 0.3 A "covered work" means either the unmodified Work or a modified version. 0.4 To "propagate" a work means to do anything with it that, without permission, would make you directly or secondarily liable for infringement under applicable copyright law, except executing it on a computer or making modifications that you do not share. Propagation includes copying, distribution (with or without modification), making available to the public, and in some countries other activities as well. 0.5 To "convey" a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies, excluding sublicensing. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying. 0.6 A "contributor" is a copyright holder who authorizes use under this License of the Program or a work on which the Program is based. The work thus licensed is called the contributor's "contributor version." 0.7 A contributor's "essential patent claims" are all patent claims owned or controlled by the contributor, whether already acquired or hereafter acquired, that would be infringed by some manner, permitted by this License, of making, using, or selling its contributor version, but do not include claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification of the contributor version. For purposes of this definition, "control" includes the right to grant patent sublicenses in a manner consistent with the requirements of this License.
The above definitions are taken from version 3 of the GPL. This seems to be a good set of essential definitions for expressing the key concepts which any Free Software license needs to deal with.
0.8 An interactive user interface is said to "display Appropriate Legal Notices" if it includes a convenient and prominently visible feature that (1) displays an appropriate copyright notice, and (2) tells the user that there is no warranty for the work (except to the extent that warranties are provided), that licensees may convey the work under this License, and how to view a copy of this License. If the interface presents a list of user commands or options, such as a menu, a prominent item in the list meets this criterion.
Relative to the text of GPLv3, the words "to the extent that" have been removed since the meaning seems to be clearer without them.
0.9 The "source code" for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.
This definition is again taken from the text of GPLv3.
0.10 A patent license or other commitment not to enforce a patent or other
legal right is said to be "non-discriminatory" if it satisfies all of
the following conditions:
(a) It is available to all individuals and organizations worldwide
under the same terms and conditions.
(b) If it is conditioned on payment of royalties or fees, the
concerned amount may depend only on the number of hardware units,
and the same per-unit amount must be charged to all licensees. In
particular, it must allow replacing software implementations of
patented methods by other software implementating the patented
methods without requiring further royalties.
(c) It may be conditioned on the payment of royalties or fees and/or
on the grant of reciprocal licenses of some kind, but it must not
impose any further restrictions on behavior of the licensee beyond
reasonable, customary terms relating to operation or maintenance
of the license relationship such as the following: audit (when
relevant to fees), choice of law, and dispute resolution.
The goal of this auxiliary definition is to avoid making FRRL licensed software incompatible with patent-encumbered but "RAND" licensed standards which unfortunately exist.
0.11 In conveying a covered work, it means for recipients to be "fully empowered to use, modify and convey the Work" that all of the following conditions are satisfied:
With this definition, the FRRL adopts a strategy which is fundamentally different from the strategy of the GPL. While the GPL in a way micromanages a set of obligations, permissions and special cases intended to achieve freedom to use, modify and convey the work, the FRRL establishes the notion of users being "fully empowered to use, modify and convey the Work" and then makes it a condition for conveying that the recipients must be fully empowered to use, modify and convey the Work.The goal of this design strategy for the FRRL is to minimize the complexity of the license text and to maximize its robustness with regard to changes in the legal environment, so that even if new laws establish new kinds of "intellectual property rights" which could otherwise be used by greedy businesses to create proprietary modified versions, the requirement that users must be "fully empowered to use, modify and convey the Work" hopefully still have the effect that all users modified versions have the fundamental freedoms to modify and to convey.
(a) The "source code" for the Work is available to the recipients
(for example by physically providing them with a copy or by
making the source code available for download via the internet),
in a form which allows modification by any individual with
ordinary professional skills in the field of expertise which is
relevant to making modifications to this kind of work, and any
computer programs which may be necessary for such modification
are available via the internet for download and usage by anyone,
free of charge.
This part covers the fundamental freedom of being able to modify the Work. It is a bit stronger than what is required by the GPL in that here file formats are disallowed which can only by modified by software which is not freely available to everyone. (However, see the note on the aspects of the FRRL's copyleft provisions which are stronger than the corresponding provisions in the GPL.)
(b) Unless the Work is conveyed in a form which which makes it
physically impossible for anyone to replace it with a modified
version (for example when the Work is installed in ROM), if the
recipients modify the Work as provided by point (a), they will be
able to use the modified versions in the same way as the copy of
the Work that was conveyed to them was intended to be used. In
particular, this implies that the recipients are provided with
installation instructions for replacing the Work with a modified
version, and it implies that the information provided in these
installation instructions must suffice to ensure that the
continued functioning of the modified version is in no case
prevented or interfered with solely because modification has been
made. (However, this does not imply any requirement to continue
to provide support service, warranty, or updates for a work that
has been modified or installed by the recipient. Network access
may be denied when the modification itself materially and
adversely affects the operation of the network or violates the
rules and protocols for communication across the network.)
This point addresses so-called tivoisation, that is the practice of designing a machine so that if the user installs a modified version of a program, the machine refuses to run it.In GPLv3, the issue of tivoisation is addressed, but only for so-called "user products". There may be valid strategic reasons for addressing this issue only partially in version 3 of the GPL, where the FSF must be careful to avoid needlessly drastic changes relative to version 2 of the GPL which could result in significants forks of GPL'd projects when project leaders try to switch them from version 2 to version 3 of the GPL. (Richard Stallman has said about this point that "this way we were able to get at least a partial agreement of businesses".) However, this risk of forks does not exist for the FRRL which is a new license. For this reason it is certainly appropriate for the FRRL to address the issue of tivoisation completely. (See also the note on the aspects of the FRRL's copyleft provisions which are stronger than the corresponding provisions in the GPL.)
(c) Any and all contracts which you have agreed to, or licenses which
you have accepted, in which third parties grant you permission to
use, propagate, modify or convey any specific copy of a covered
work, are non-discriminatory or also grant the same permissions to
anyone who receives a copy of the covered work. For the purpose
of this paragraph, "granting permission" shall be interpreted as
including not only explicit permissions but also any kind of
covenant not to bring suit for infringement of a patent or other
legal right, or any other express agreement or commitment, however
denominated, not to enforce a patent or other legal right.
This point addresses the loophole in version 2 of the GPL which was exploited in the Microsoft-Novell deal.The patent-related provisions of the FRRL are designed to be at least as strong as the corresponding provisions in draft 3 for GPL version 3, but with less complexity and therefore less potential for unexpected loopholes.
(See also the notes on compatibility of RewardRights licenses with patent licenses.)
1.0 All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of
copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated
conditions are met. The output from running a covered work is covered
by this License only if the output, given its content, constitutes a
covered work. This License acknowledges your rights of fair use or
other equivalent, as provided by copyright law.
1.1 You may make, run and propagate covered works that you do not convey,
without conditions so long as your license otherwise remains in force.
You may convey covered works to others for the sole purpose of having
them make modifications exclusively for you, or provide you with
facilities for running those works, provided that you comply with the
terms of this License in conveying all material for which you do not
hold copyright. Those thus making or running the covered works for
you must do so exclusively on your behalf, under your direction and
control, on terms that prohibit them from making any copies of your
copyrighted material outside their relationship with you.
1.2 Conveying under any other circumstances is permitted solely under
the conditions stated below. Sublicensing is not allowed; section 2.0
makes it unnecessary.
1.3 You may convey verbatim copies of the Work provided that all
recipients are given a copy of this License along with the Work,
and that all legal disclaimers, copyright notices, and references to
this License are kept intact, and that in addition the recipients are
fully empowered to use, modify and convey the Work.
1.4 You may create modified versions and convey copies of these modified
versions, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
(a) The Work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified
it, and giving a relevant date.
(b) The Work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released
under this License, and it must be accompanied by a copy of this
License.
(c) The recipients are fully empowered to use, modify and convey the
Work.
(d) You must license the entire Work, as a whole, under this License
to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will
therefore apply to the whole of the work, and all its parts,
regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no
permission to license the work in any way besides the ways
described in this section and in sections 6 and 7 below, but
it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately
received it.
(e) For purposes of this paragraph, a "patent license" means any
express agreement or commitment, however denominated, not to
enforce a patent, and to "grant" a patent license to a party means
to make such an agreement or commitment not to enforce a patent
against the party. If, pursuant to or in connection with a single
transaction or arrangement, you convey, or propagate by procuring
conveyance of, a covered work, and grant a patent license to some
of the parties receiving the covered work authorizing them to use,
propagate, modify or convey a specific copy of the covered work,
then the patent license you grant is automatically extended to all
recipients of the covered work and works based on it.
(f) If the Work has interactive user interfaces, each must display
Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has interactive
interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal Notices, your
work need not make them do so.
1.5 In addition to the above permissions, each contributor grants you a
non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the
contributor's essential patent claims to make, use, sell, offer for
sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents
of its contributor version.
1.6 Nothing in this License shall be construed as excluding or limiting
any implied license or other defenses to infringement that may
otherwise be available to you under applicable patent law.
1.7 A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent
works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work,
in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an
"aggregate" if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not
used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users
beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work
in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other
parts of the aggregate.
1.8 You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey,
and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee.
This article informs recipients about the fundamental freedoms they have by means of this License.
2.0 Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work, subject to this License. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties with this License.
This paragraph informs about the mechanism through which recipients receive the freedom rights stated in articles 1.
2.1 An "entity transaction" is a transaction transferring control of an organization, or substantially all assets of one, or subdividing an organization, or merging organizations. If propagation of a covered work results from an entity transaction, each party to that transaction who receives a copy of the work also receives whatever licenses to the work the party's predecessor in interest had or could give under the previous paragraph, plus a right to possession of the Corresponding Source of the work from the predecessor in interest, if the predecessor has it or can get it with reasonable efforts.
This paragraph provide definiteness concerning what happens with the rights under this license in the case of such "entity transactions".
2.2 You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License. For example, except as explicitly allowed in section 6, you may not impose any kind of license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this License, and you may not initiate litigation (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any patent claim is infringed by making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the Program or any portion of it.
This paragraph is part of the mechanism for ensuring that the freedom rights which have been granted to all recipients by the contributors cannot be taken away by middlemen who try to impose unacceptable restrictions or requirements for royalty payments.
2.3 No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological measure under any applicable law fulfilling obligations under article 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty adopted on 20 December 1996, or similar laws prohibiting or restricting circumvention of such measures. 2.4 When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technical measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's users, your or third parties' legal rights to forbid circumvention of technical measures.
These two paragraphs protect users' legal rights from anti-circumvention laws.
3.0 You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void. If you violate this License, any copyright holder may put you on notice by notifying you of the violation, by any reasonable means. Having put you on notice, the copyright holder may, at any time, terminate the rights (including any patent rights) that the copyright holder has granted to you under this License. 3.1 However, if this is your first violation of this License with respect to a given copyright holder, and you cure the violation within 30 days following your receipt of the notice, then your license is automatically reinstated. 3.2 In the event that your rights are terminated under this section, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as they remain in full compliance.
This termination clause is what provides teeth to the copyleft provisions. Otherwise it would be very difficult to take effective action against middlemen who try to impose unacceptable restrictions or requirements for royalty payments.
4.0 This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Work if it is a computer program, or part thereof. 4.1 You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Work. Ancillary propagation of a covered work occurring solely as a consequence of using peer-to-peer transmission to receive a copy likewise does not require acceptance. 4.2 However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so.
These provisions are identical to the corresponding provisions in the GPL, which have already successfully been tested in court.
If conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot convey the Program, or other covered work, so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not convey it at all. For example, if you agree to terms that obligate you to collect a royalty for further conveying from those to whom you convey the Program, the only way you could satisfy both those terms and this License would be to refrain entirely from conveying the Program.
The provisions are possibly important in some situations to prevent the "we didn't know we can't do this" defense for infringement on the conditions of the license from being effective.
If you create a modified version of the Work, you may opt to apply a Non-Free RewardRights License to the modified version as described in the following paragraphs of this section. To do this, you must alter all the files that you modify the notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to the Non-Free RewardRights License, instead of to this License. Do not make any other change in these notices. In the Non-Free RewardRights License, sections 0, 1, 2, 3, 5 and 9 must be identical to the corresponding sections of this License. The Copyright Notice of the Non-Free RewardRights License must read as follows: "With the exception of sections 6 and 7, this license document is Copyright (C) 2007 Bollow Software Economics Research ( http://bollow.ch ) Weidlistrasse 18, CH-8624 Gruet, Switzerland Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but only sections 6 and 7 may be modified, and only according to the rules described in section 8." The Preamble of the Non-Free RewardRights License must read as follows: "Preamble. This is a Non-Free License Agreement, but at least it guarantees your essential rights to copy and redistribute this works in original or modified form. The precise terms and conditions for usage, copying, distribution and modification follow. Note that payment of a fee may be required in case of commercial usage and/or redistribution." Section 4 of the Non-Free RewardRights License must read as follows: "4. License Acceptance. You are not required to accept this License in order to receive a copy. Ancillary propagation of a covered work occurring solely as a consequence of using peer-to-peer transmission to receive a copy likewise does not require acceptance. However, making any other use of the Work, such as e.g. redistributing it or running it if it is a computer program is allowed only after accepting this License. When you convey a covered work you must ensure that the recipient will not make use of the Work without modifying it or accepting this License." Section 6 of the Non-Free RewardRights License must contain a list of the kind(s) of commercial use of the Work for which the business using the Work must pay monetary rewards to you in recognition of your contribution to the Work, and how minimum reward payments are to be computed. You are free to set the rule for reward payments according to your sole discretion, subject to applicable law. (If you choose to ask for too much, businesses can simply choose to not use the Work, in which case you will not receive any reward.) Section 6 of the Non-Free RewardRights License must not contain anything besides the rules for reward payments. Section 7 of the Non-Free RewardRights License must consist either of the statement "This License does not incorporate any patent license agreements", or a list of royalty-free patent license agreements that are incorporated in the Non-Free RewardRights License Agreement. Patent license agreements may be so incorporated in the Non-Free RewardRights License Agreement only if the party which claims to hold patent rights offers the patent license agreements royalty-free to everyone without discrimination, and only if acceptance of the patent license agreement does not require any actions besides inclusion, or non-removal, of a corresponding notice in the source code and/or documentation of the Work. Section 8 of the Non-Free RewardRights License must read as follows: "8. Allowed changes to sections 6 and 7. (a) Adding Additional Reward Rights. If you create a modified version of the Work, you may opt to add additional rules, corresponding to your contribution, to section 6 of this license. You are free to set the rule for reward payments according to your sole discretion, subject to applicable law. (If you choose to ask for too much, businesses can simply choose to not use the Work, in which case you will not receive any reward.) Section 6 of the Non-Free RewardRights License must not contain anything besides the rules for reward payments. (b) Removal of Reward Rights. If you create a modified version of the Work so that after your modifications you can determine that one or more of the Reward Rules in section 6 refers to contributions on which your modified version is not based, you may remove those Reward Rules from section 6 of this License. Otherwise removing rules from section 6 is not allowed. (c) Adding Additional Royalty-Free Patent Licenses. You may interpret Section 7 of this Non-Free RewardRights License as a list of royalty-free patent license agreements which are incorporated by reference in this Non-Free RewardRights License, and you may add further royalty-free patent license agreements to this list provided that the party which claims to hold patent rights offers the patent license agreement royalty-free to everyone without discrimination, and provided that acceptance of the patent license agreement does not require any actions besides inclusion, or non-removal, of a corresponding notice in the source code and/or documentation of the Work." The Non-Free RewardRights License must consist in its entirety of a non-misleading title together with the copyright notice, preamble and sections 0-9 described above. You may optionally make your modified version of the Work available also under the terms of a license which is obtained by means of professionally diligent translation of the text of the Non-Free RewardRights License into a language other than English, provided that the English text of the Non-Free RewardRights License is also conveyed with the modified version.
This section gives some permissions for non-free modified versions, in contrast to the provisions of the GPL which is designed to not allow any non-free modified versions.The main point of the FRRL is that the non-free modified versions allowed here are still required to that users must be "fully empowered to use, modify and convey the Work", in the sense which that phrase is given in its definition in section 0.
The category of allowed non-free patent licenses is intentionally narrow, in particular it does not allow for requiring "reward rights" royalty payments to be associated with patent rights, in order to avoid providing any additional incentive that would increase the proliferation of software patents, which is a serious problem in itself. However, it is large enough to include a patent license which Microsoft has actually used (the XML Paper Specification Patent License), so that Microsoft has no excuse not to make future patent licenses compatible.
(a) Relicensing under the terms of the GNU General Public License. You may opt to apply the terms of the GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Work. To do this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to version 2 or a specific later version of the GNU General Public License, which has been published by the Free Software Foundation, instead of to this License. Do not make any other change in these notices. Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for that copy, so the GNU General Public License applies to all subsequent modified versions made from that copy. (b) Use with the Apache License Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, you have permission to link any covered work with a work licensed under version 2.0 of the Apache License, and to convey the resulting combination, provided that in doing so you fulfil the conditions imposed by the Apache License and provided that the combined work fulfils conditions (a), (c), (e) and (f) of section 1 of this License. The terms of this License will continue to apply to the covered work, but will not apply to the work with which it is linked, which will remain governed by the Apache License.
The goal of these paragraphs is to make the FRRL compatible with the most widely-used Free Software licenses. If at some future time, possibly due to great popularity of version 3 or of a later version of the GPL, version 2 of the GPL is no longer a widely-used license, and also there are no other widely-used Free Software licenses which allow relicensing under version 2 of the GPL but not under later versions, a new version of the FRRL may be released which no longer allows relicensing under version 2 of the GPL (the copyleft provisions of which have some weaknesses).
(c) Use with some Creative Commons Licenses Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, you have permission to combine any covered work with a work licensed under any version of one of the following the Creative Commons Licenses: * Creative Commons Attribution License * Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License In addition you have permission to publicly perform the combined work, provided that in doing so you fulfil the conditions imposed by the respective Creative Commons License or that you have obtained an additional license from the copyright holder of the Creative Commons licensed work which allows your public performance. Furthermore, if the combined work is not a computer program, you also have permission to convey it, provided that in doing so you fulfil the conditions imposed by the respective Creative Commons License. The terms of this License will continue to apply to the covered work but will not apply to the work with which it is combined, which will remain governed by a Creative Commons License.
Since the FRRL is intended to be useful not only for software, but also for textual and multimedia content, compatibility with Creative Commons Licenses is important. The permission for conveying combined work is restricted to combined works which are not computer programs so that this does not undermine the copyleft properties of the license with respect to computer programs.
(d) Use as part of the text of webpages For any part of the Work which is suitable to be read by humans as part of the text of a website, you have permission to include it on webpages that can be publicly accessed via the internet, provided that any and all requests for attribution from authors and copyright holders are satisfied.
When someone only wants to quote some text on a webpage, the requirement to include a copy of the license is unreasonably cumbersome. Hence this additional permission.
(e) Use with proprietary presentation elements You have permission to combine the Work with proprietary presentation elements which contribute to the "look and feel" of the combined work but not to its information content and functionality, and to convey the combined work under any license which fulfills the requirement that all recipients of the combined work or derivative works thereof must have the right and a convenient means to remove all the proprietary presentation elements to obtain a work which has the same information content and functionality and which is licensed under this Free RewardRights License.
The "look and feel" of a computer program is strongly related to a vendor's ability to charge for it. The intention of this paragraph is to make this License as vendor-friendly as possible with respect to such "look and feel" elements as long as the freedoms of users with regard to information content and functionality are not impacted.
Bollow Software Economics Research may publish revised and/or new versions of the Free RewardRights License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the Free RewardRights License "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of the Free RewardRights License, you may choose any version ever published by Bollow Software Economics Research. If the Program specifies that a proxy can decide whether future versions of the Free RewardRights License shall apply, that proxy's public statement of acceptance of any version is permanent authorization for you to choose that version for the Program.
These provisions follow the example of the GPL.
THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. If the disclaimer of warranty and limitation of liability provided above cannot be given local legal effect according to their terms, reviewing courts shall apply local law that most closely approximates an absolute waiver of all civil liability in connection with the Program, unless a warranty or assumption of liability accompanies a copy of the Program in return for a fee.
This kind of disclaimer seems to be required, in some jurisdictions at least, in order to avoid unreasonable liabilities.