[beyond-copyright] easy question to start, naming

Karl Fogel kfogel at red-bean.com
Tue Mar 29 22:11:54 UTC 2016


Leslie Hawthorn <lhawthorn at opensource.org> writes:
>    Especially since Karl's got "question copyright.org", I've got to
>    question the use of "copyright" here and second the suggestion of
>    "beyond licensing".  OSI has limited itself to licensing to both
>    great success but also potentially missed opportunity.  It feels
>    like this could be a part of defining the next generation of OSI.
>
>+1
>
>This. Exactly this.

Me-too post: I also prefer "Beyond Licensing", for all the reasons people have already given in this thread.

Regarding Tony's followup to Allison:

> In your earlier summary of the O'Reilly sustainability summit, you
> wrote about addressing "aspects of open source beyond copyright
> licenses, with a goal of making a clear simple statement of
> principles".  I'd personally prefer that we not use "copyright" or
> "licensing" in the name of the working group, but rather something
> like "openness principles". That approach could suggest the creation
> of a list of characteristics that could be used in parallel with the
> OSD.  I can imagine copyright being among those characteristics, but
> we probably also want to address a broader range of topics.  (I have a
> few in mind, but this is not the time, nor place, for that.)

I think "open" or "openness principles" will mean too many things to too many different people -- it won't be specific enough.  For those with some familiarity with the OSI, saying "beyond licensing" is pretty concrete: it means the OSI supporting open source software by means other than licenses.  That's probably the right audience to aim for, and the right message to send to that audience.

So I actually like "Beyond Licensing" more than "Openness Principles".  If we have consensus on the new name, maybe Allison can rename this mailing list to the new name, set up the wiki, etc?

Meanwhile, I'll follow up separately with a mail about some of the things we discussed at the meeting.

Best regards,
-Karl



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