Open Source Business Found Parasitic, and the ADCL

[James Harrell]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ralph Mellor [mailto:ralph at dimp.com]
>Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 1:52 PM
>
>It really seems you completely miss the point of the OSI! To
>quote their home page "Open Source Initiative exists to make
>[the open source] case to the commercial world." You may feel
>it is/has failed, but the interest level is not only non-zero,
>it's actually 100%, as it's the entire point of OSI's existence.


Great! I don't think I'm missing the point- I think that the
point (or perhaps better said, some folks who respond on this
list regulary) has little tolerance for compromise; whereas from
my perspective, I'm looking at making major changes to (one part
of) my business model. It's just a little discouraging when one
tries to participate but meets heavy resistance on most points.
All I know is that the fangs come out whenever this type of
discussion comes up. :)

Thanks all for the fun discussions. Finally, I know there are
some clauses most commercial entities would like to see in a license
that are specifically excluded by the OSD. So as a means of finding
some common ground, I have a request:

Would the OSI consider discussing a "Commercial Open Source License"
for "OSI Endorsement" but *not* OSI approval?

In other words, us commercial folks will pull together a license that
is *almost* OSI compliant. And instead of running folks off when they
ask the enevitable, or pointing them to licenses that (in the eyes of
most commercial organizations) have notable deficiencies, point them
towards and OSI endorsed commercial license?

Regards,
James Harrell, CEO
Copernicus Business Systems

ps: we've looked at MPL and all of the other recommended licenses. I'm
sure we'll look again. But I'm also sure they each have problems for
most commercial organizations.
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