compatibility and the OSD

[Russell Nelson]

Evan Prodromou writes:
 > So, I'd like to pop my head up and say that I think this license sucks eggs.

OF COURSE it sucks eggs.  Many of the approved licenses suck eggs, and
nobody in their right mind would reuse them, much less use them in the
first place.  We would be happy to turn down any and all licenses that
suck eggs, but first we would need a term in the OSD (#11?) that says
"No license shall suck eggs."

It should be instructive to anybody submitting a new license that 1)
their license is different than anybody else's license by definition,
and 2) thusly any code made from combining A-licensed code with
B-licensed code must comply with both licenses, so that 3) unless you
want your code to end up in a ghetto you should be damned sure that
your code is compatible (in the sense of not conflicting) with
the major existing licenses, which really implies that 4) unless your
license is damn good, you'd really do better to reuse an existing
license.

NIH is as bad for licenses as it is for code.  We've handily solved
the problem of software reuse; now if only we could solve the problem
of license reuse.

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