An explanation of the difficulty of solving licenseproliferation in one sentence

[Peters, Robin L (Stormy, OSPO)]

> Hmm... I have my doubts about anyone's motivation when they 
> say "we are not doing this for ourselves, it's for you." 

I never said we were doing it for you!  I said it was for companies and
individuals that do not have the knowledge or resources to evaluate all
the licenses and yet they want to use open source.  Licence
proliferation is one barrier to their adoption of open source software.
(You obviously understand the licenses so I wasn't referring to you.)
HP has a successful Linux and Open Source business and we would like to
see more people adopt open source software solutions and therefore we
are motivated to make the open source software model easy and clear.
Clear as in not confusing.

I think there are many ways the problem of license proliferation can be
solved.  One way is for us to create fewer licenses.  There are many
other ways.  Black Duck Software and OSRM are just a few companies that
have created business models to address the confusion in the licensing
and legal space around open source software.  

Stormy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. [mailto:roddixon at cyberspaces.org] 
> Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 8:57 PM
> To: Peters, Robin L (Stormy, OSPO); license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: An explanation of the difficulty of solving 
> licenseproliferation in one sentence
> 
> Hmm... I have my doubts about anyone's motivation when they 
> say "we are not doing this for ourselves, it's for you."  
> Aside from that, I am still waiting to see if Intel or HP or 
> any of the other advocates of the 'sky is falling from 
> license-proliferation' choir can backup these claims with 
> real reasons. So Far, the claims are supported by vague 
> concerns with "license compatibility" and something about a 
> license not being "popular."
> 
> It should go without saying that  actions like "de approving" 
> existing licenses in order to fix what is alleged to be 
> broken at least requires reflective debate about why (or 
> whether) license-proliferation is a problem. 
> Certainly, it is apparent that the inherent risks to some of 
> the proposed solutions seem to come with greater problems 
> than the problem they are intended to solve. More 
> fundamentally, to the extent that there is a problem worthy 
> of a solution, an open debate may help to disclose what that 
> problem might be.  It is worth noting that the freedom to 
> contract or to copyright your software (by way of drafting a 
> software license) is not a freedom that can be easily 
> abridged by this grouper any other. I think much of the 
> discussion so far has run counter to this fundamental 
> principle (at least in or within the jurisdiction of the U.S.).
> 
> Rod Dixon
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Peters, Robin L (Stormy, OSPO)" <stormy.peters at hp.com>
> To: <license-discuss at opensource.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 5:38 PM
> Subject: RE: An explanation of the difficulty of solving 
> licenseproliferation in one sentence
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Martin Fink isn't advocating fewer licenses to save himself work (he
> delegates that work to me :) - he's advocating fewer licenses to make
> open source software more "adoptable" and pervasive.  HP has the
> knowledge and resources to evaluate all the open source 
> licenses and how
> they do (or don't) work together.  Not all companies and individuals
> have that knowledge or resource.  We would like to make it easier for
> everyone to use open source software and making the licensing scheme
> simpler is one way to achieve that.
> 
> Stormy
> 
> -------------------------
> Stormy Peters
> Open Source Program Office
> Hewlett-Packard Company
> http://opensource.hp.com
> 
>