For Approval: Open Source Software Alliance License

[Mahesh T. Pai]

Sean Chittenden said on Sat, Sep 27, 2003 at 08:07:51PM -0700,:

 > I think  if I were to  remove the following from  the clause, "(ex:
 > the  GNU  Public  License,   hereafter  known  as  the  GPL),"  the
 > discussion wouldn't have been nearly as involved.  *sigh*

On the  contrary, the words  in parentheses only clarify  the previous
words. Yes, you  have been very careful in drafting  the license to be
OSD compliant,  but your  craftiness makes me  think of  suggesting an
amendment to the OSD.

Few days  back, we had a  discussion on use of  non-free interfaces to
free  software -  and the  particular example  used was  use  of CORBA
interface to  a GPL'ed application. My understanding  of the consensus
on this list  is that it is permissible,  because writing an interface
to a GPL'ed program does not amount to creation of a derivative work. 

On the other hand, the proposed OSSA license does not permit this, and
is therefore, discriminatory.

The infringing portion is:-

'must not be linked to software that is released with a license'
             ^^^^^^

If this clears the OSD, it  is OSD which should be changed. The entire
spirit behind the OSS movement is to prevent fragmentation of s/w, and
s/w which will not interact with each other. 

OSSAL explicitly enables this.
	     
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+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
                                          
  Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M.,                   
  'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road,               
  Ernakulam, Cochin-682018,               
  Kerala, India.                          
                                          
  http://in.geocities.com/paivakil         
                                          
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