Open Source Business Found Parasitic, and the ADCL

[Ralph Mellor]

> >It really seems you completely miss the point of the OSI!
>
> I don't think I'm missing the point-
> ...
> 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

Again, you *are* missing the point. The OSI and OSD were developed
specifically to be the common ground of which you speak.

In the beginning, there was the FSF, and commercial people said,
"RMS is ornery and not particularly commercial world friendly".

So someone, like you, said, why don't we come up with compromises
that go as far as one can reasonably go, without losing the key
developers and users rights that matter. Lets find some common
ground. And let's give it a name and an organization to back this
initiative up.

Thus the OSI and OSD were born.

I recommend you go read the stuff on the web site pages.


> 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.

Perhaps. But the MPL was specifically designed to be the very
compromise of which you speak. It consumed tons of legal and
community time. There was serious pressure from some large
corporations to protect their IP rights and ability to sell
software that mixed proprietary and free code.

Yes, each license has its problems. By far the biggest problem
for any new license is that it is a new license. You are better
off picking one of the existing licenses and then going through
that license finding problems, then searching the archives for
discussion of those issues, and only then, when you still don't
know about something, posting a question here, about one issue
at a time.

--
ralph

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