[beyond-licensing] Legal topics that FOSS projects could use more information on

[Richard Fontana]

On 06/15/2016 08:15 AM, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 05:06:38AM -0700, Brian Behlendorf wrote:
>> Is it right to call it "dangers" when there are both pros and cons?
>> For example, it's one of the only tools we have to help retire old
>> licenses, or encourage greater license compatibility (for example,
>> when Mozilla went triple-licensed with GPL, LGPL, and MPL).

Mozilla did not use anything that could be called 'copyright
accumulation' - the tri-license was just one particular open source
license policy.

> You're highlighting the pros, while my subconscious was highlighting the
> cons :-)
> 
> But that's kinda prove the point. We need resources explaining this
> stuff to developers, because it's tricky and at the same time often gets
> decided early on in the lifetime of a project.

Is the suggestion that explaining this stuff to developers requires us
to take a neutral position on everything (thus pointing out pros and
cons)? If so I don't even see the point of this group -- there are pros
and cons to everything involving legal and governance issues in open source.

Richard