Advertising Clauses in Licenses

[Bruce Perens]

On Mon, Jan 21, 2002 at 09:34:10AM -0800, Lawrence E. Rosen wrote:
> But I still have a concern.  I have always argued that we should review
> and approve licenses according to a published standard.  This prevents
> us from being (or appearing to be) arbitrary and capricious.  So where
> in the OSD, or in the GPL, do we make it clear that potentially
> burdensome license requirements (however those are defined) are not
> allowed?

Larry,

I'm not sure we can create a definition of "burdensome", even in statutory
language, that would be sufficient for inclusion in the OSD. However, you can
make it part of the published role of the OSI board to review proposed
licenses for undue burden on the developer and user, and you can give some
examples - the combinatorial problem, user burdens such as badgeware,
etc. This is an activity that the OSI has previously carried out
well, and I most strongly urge that they should continue to do so. To
fail to do that will inevitably lead to all sorts of perversions of Open
Source as people figure out creative loopholes.

I do not believe, and never have, that any version of the OSD should be
applied as an automated process. Do courts never consider the spirit of the
law? I think you are coming at this from an urge to eliminate any
possible litigation situations in which an OSI decision is challenged.
There has to be some risk, but you can still make this a fruitless game
for the challenger without decerebrating the license approval process.

	Thanks

	Bruce
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