For Approval: German Free Software License

[Russell Nelson]

Bjorn Reese writes:
 > On Wed, 2004-12-01 at 17:00, Russell Nelson wrote:
 > 
 > > for a favor.  You want to create the best open source license you can
 > > -- a license that is visibly better than any other license.  If you're
 > > uninterested in doing that, then you're not going to get your license
 > > approved, because the world does not have an intrinsic need for any
 > > more open source licenses.  Since you have been offered suggestions
 > 
 > Is this an official policy? The submission procedure only mentions
 > conformance to the OSD (apart from some bureaucratical steps) as the
 > criterion for acceptance or refusal. It does not mention an upper
 > limit to the amount of licenses that can be accepted.

This: "Explain why that license will not suffice for your needs."
is not a bureaucratic step.  If you cannot explain why an existing
license is insufficient to meet your needs, then why should we approve
your license.  If you don't know why the world needs your license, we
don't know why we should approve it, so ... we won't.

The upper limit on licenses is intrinsic to that requirement, and the
OSD itself.  There are an infinite number of licenses which are
trivially different from all other existing licenses.  We have no
plans to approve all of them.  Therefore, there *is* an upper limit to
the number of licenses which will be approved.  Could I give you a
number?  No.

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