Backlog assistance?

[Steve Lhomme]

| Excuse me, but I strongly disagree with this, speaking as somebody who's
| just gone through a fair amount of work (which I would happily have
| avoided if possible) to create my own license specifically because none
| of the other OSI licenses come very close to supporting the set of
| features I want (and yes, my license is fully OSD compliant).  The
| existing license set encompasses the complete _conventional_ Open Source
| domain, but frankly the reason most licenses are derivative is because
| most people aren't being very creative.  I worked very hard and looked
| everywhere I could to find a license that said what I wanted and it
| ain't there, so I finally gave up and spent the effort to make it.  I
| might even submit it to the OSI if I can convince myself that anybody in
| this dessicated venue will even bother to consider looking at it..

So it seems that I'm not the only one who made this work to finally find out
that something new needs to be created. Too bad, this efforts are doubled
(or probably more than doubled).

| Or maybe I won't bother.  I like the concept of the OSI and what they're
| ostensibly doing, and I'd even like to help, but when it comes right
| down to it, it's not like OSI certification is actually _useful_ for
| anything..

It is ! If only your software use your license, that's not a problem. But if
more projects use it, that's a big deal. If you look at sourceforge.net or
opensourcedirectory.org you'll see that if you want to be part of that Open
Source community (which is probably the majority of projects) you have to
use an OSI-approved license. There is still the "Other/Proprietary License
"category", but most developpers are not confident with that (sounds
tricky).

So the thing is that lots of open-source efforts, when it comes to licenses,
base their analysis on the OSI. Because it's easier and faster. But if it's
not opened to any change, while many people feel the need for more options
in licenses, there will be a growing gap. That will be bad for the whole
community. That's why the problem should be solved at the source : the OSI.

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