License Approval Process

[Rick Moen]

begin Derek J. Balling quotation:

> Something to keep in mind.
> 
> For a company, when it comes down to
> 
> 1.) Pay nobody for advice and have your open-source license fall into 
> a black hole", or
> 2.) Pay nobody and have your staff lawyers who were going to be there 
> anyway draft up a nice closed-source license from all the 
> boiler-plate they have lying around"
> 
> ... businesses are going to choose the latter, rather than end up 
> waiting forever and not hearing back.

You know, I don't speak for anyone else (which is why I can speak my
mind) -- but, _if_ I were a volunteer OSI Board member, busy with an
otherwise productive life, and I saw the time-wastage, the endless
recapitulation of eminently FAQable material, and the proliferation of
new proposed licences that are mostly ill-thought-out, have little
reason for existence other than as exercises in creative writing, and 
show a stunning lack of concern for their tendency to ghetto-ise code
into hermetically sealed, tiny licence communities that cannot use or be
used by others, I think I'd mostly ignore this list, too.

In my estimation, the current OSI offer of gratis evaluation of any old
casually-drafted licence from anyone, while well-intended and perhaps 
necessary, has the unfortunate side-effect of encouraging gratuitous
proliferation of mutually incompatible licences, and wastage of the
OSI's time by people who do not respect or value it.

(Note that I am _not_ saying everyone here commits that sin.  But many
have.)

Reply-to has been set, since meta-discussions can be pernicious.

-- 
Cheers,                              "Open your present...."
Rick Moen                            "No, you open your present...."
rick (at) linuxmafia.com             Kaczinski Christmas.
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