[beyond-licensing] quick review of scope, resources, and goals

[Stephen Walli]

As we think about how we might articulate a set of principles, I might
suggest we pick a focus. What I mean by that may be best demonstrated with
an example [from a recent blog post on open source memes]:

"Meme #10: Software freedom and open source licensing are different
discussions.
Arguing about software freedom versus open source software is like debating
whether democracy is better than capitalism, or free speech is more
important than free markets. They are each important discussions in their
own rights, and people often have a natural affinity for one subject or the
other, but they are not the same discussion. They are not end points on a
continuum. The language of software freedom is defined by the rights of
users. The language of open source software is defined by attributes of a
license. These are different discussions."

I think the respective definitions are both very crisp and can be cleanly
differentiated because they are clearly discussing things from a
perspective (the user's or the license's) and then they can focus on a set
of relevant attributes (rights for users, attributes of a license).  I
think that quality of perspective makes each of those definitions powerful.
cheers, always  stephe

On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 4:08 AM, Leslie Hawthorn <lhawthorn at opensource.org>
wrote:

>
>
> On 5 April 2016 at 00:06, Allison Randal <allison at opensource.org> wrote:
>
>> On 04/04/2016 03:08 PM, Allison Randal wrote:
>> > The difference between a mailing list and an "official" working group is
>> > a simple process where we explain to the OSI board what we want to do,
>> > and the board says "that makes sense". I've put together a first draft
>> > using the standard template, could you all take a look and see whether
>> > I've captured the idea behind the group? Feel free to suggest any
>> > changes or make them directly to the wiki page:
>> >
>> >
>> https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Projects/Beyond+Licensing+Working+Group+Proposal
>>
>
> Proposal LGTM.
>
> Thank you for volunteering to chair the Working Group, Deb!
>
>>
>> A note: I have a hope that the final result will be a set of principles
>> that the FSF could also approve, with a quick substitution of "free
>> software" for "open source". That might sound radical, until you recall
>> that the Open Source Definition is just a few quick substitutions on the
>> Debian Free Software Guidelines.
>>
>> I don't know that it belongs as a goal in the charter for the working
>> group, since it would be the FSF's choice whether they want it at all.
>> But, it does influence the process, and especially makes me glad that we
>> have participants who self-identify as "free software" as well as
>> participants who self-identify as "open source".
>>
>> I'd aim for a third version that substitutes "software freedom", but
>> grammatically I think we're far less likely to succeed at a 1:1
>> replacement with that phrase.
>>
>
> I would hope this third version would be possible with some clever editing
> and I volunteer to assist with that effort when the time is right.
>
> Cheers,
> LH
>
> ----
> Leslie Hawthorn
> Board Member
> Open Source Initiative
> http://opensource.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> beyond-licensing mailing list
> beyond-licensing at opensource.org
> https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/beyond-licensing
>
>


-- 
Stephen R. Walli
mailto:   stephen.walli at gmail.com
mobile:   +1 425 785 6102
blogs:    http://stephesblog.blogs.com  (Once More unto the Breach)
          https://opensource.com/user_articles/16271
<http://www.networkworld.com/community/walli> (opensource.com)
Flickr:   http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenrwalli/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenrwalli
Twitter:  @stephenrwalli
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/beyond-licensing_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20160406/38ab5809/attachment.html>