OSD modification regarding what license can require of user

[Emiliano]

David Johnson wrote:

> > My point was that distribution will not become irrelevant just because
> > of the Web Services hype.  In the reasonably foreseeable future,
> > most programs will continue to execute locally because of bandwidth
> > constraints.
>
> It's more than bandwidth contraints. A future where all applications run on
> remote servers and all the clients are thin is foreseeable, but not likely.
> We had that once, back in the days when RMS decided not to place restrictions
> on usage but only on distribution. We've moved beyond that. We now realize
> that it is more efficient to have a thousand CPUs process a thousand
> applications than to have a single centralized CPU process those same
> thousand applications.
>
> Personally I don't think this latest big push towards thin clients is going
> to be any more successful than the earlier pushes. Some of it will of course
> happen, but I don't expect it to be the common mode of executing applications.
>
> I do foresee distributed processing. But this involves distribution, so no
> problem. But centralized processing has come and gone.

>From your point of view, maybe. _I_ do have a web-service type
application that I wish to release as open source, and this application
will typically be used _exactly_ in the way you say that 'has come and
gone'.

Whether or not you feel that this is or isn't a good way to deploy
applications is entirely irrelevant to me. I have an application to
release; if I can't release it under an open source license because
these types of apps are deemed irrelevant by the OSI then so be it. Closed
source it is. I still have hopes for the amended GPL or a variant of
the APSL or W3C license, though.

Emile

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