Submitting a new license or using the current ones
Chuck Swiger
chuck at codefab.com
Thu May 6 18:57:08 UTC 2004
On May 6, 2004, at 2:16 PM, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
>> I don't understand why there are so many licenses, if the open-source
>> specification is so rigid.
>
> I don't really understand it either. I mean, I know how we got here
> step by step, but looking at the situation now it doesn't make much
> sense.
The list of OSI-approved licenses includes near-duplicates such as the
BSD license versus the SleepyCat license or the "University of
Illinois/NCSA Open Source License", for one thing. [Or the NetHack
license versus the GPLv1...]
Others who have suggested that the list of approved licenses is going
to continue to grow are very likely right, but is that a problem?
If so, efforts to create license templates with a range of choices
which result in OSI Open Source-compatible terms, such as the Creative
Commons licenses, seem to be a good idea. A similar effort could be
made to coalesce BSD-like licenses, GPL-derived licenses, and perhaps
others (the MPL?).
--
-Chuck
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