Approval Requested for AFL 1.2 and OSL 1.1

[Forrest J. Cavalier III]

"Lawrence E. Rosen" <lrosen at rosenlaw.com> wrote, in part:

> > "to prepare"... What is prepare? To fork a CVS copy in 
> > preparation for some "real work"? To... I don't know.
> 
> The word "prepare" is taken from 17 U.S.C. 106, which reserves to the
> author of a copyrighted work the exclusive right "to prepare derivative
> works based upon the copyrighted work."  If the word is good enough for
> the U.S. Copyright Act, its good enough for me.
> 

Wait a minute Larry.  I didn't have any trouble with the word
"prepare" but what happened to the attitude that lawyers
are skilled in the art of communicating an agreement?

Since you are writing licenses for licensors, you might often
have the attitude that their main purpose is keeping the
licensor from being a defendant.  But open-source is about
a playing-field where licensors and licensees cooperate.  We
don't want any plaintiffs.

The licensees must know how the licensor wishes them to cooperate.
There has been recent discussion on this list about making sure the
licensee sees and accepts the disclaimers and license.  What is the
point if the wording is only readable by lawyers and those intimately
familiar with the Copyright Act?

Larry, we want wording which pleases the courts and pleases the
licensee. (I think it can be done, and you are capable, from what
I have seen.)

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BTW, request for approval after very recent changes is a poor
idea from a "release engineering" perspective.  What's the rush?

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