A prototype License Wizard up and running

[Alex Rousskov]

On Fri, 2005/04/08 (MDT), <jclift at digitaldistribution.com> wrote:

> "People" in this case is still rather undecided, as it has been pointed  
> out the developers, end users, and business people may each need  
> different approaches.  So for this exercise we should decide who to  
> cater to.

While there are many kinds of software users, for this wizard, we only  
need to consider those that make licensing decisions. This removes end  
users from our scope, I guess. They may need a very different kind of  
wizard helping them to explain what they can do with software released  
under a known set of licenses.

It is possible that OSI-hosted license finder wizard will have multiple  
configurations. For example, one tailored to developers licensing their  
own work and one tailored to business people making licensing decisions.  
The questions will differ even if the license set is the same for both.

>> Depending on how it is implemented, a wizard could have the effect of  
>> either consolidating licence usage (by directing people to, or only  
>> dealing with 3-5 annointed licences), or diffusing it (by attempting to  
>> give equal airplay to each of them).

In either case, we should have fewer new licenses because more people will  
be able to find what they are looking for among existing ones. I would  
expect at least some consolidation effect though: There is no
pragmatic reason to recommend two identical licenses; we can always pick  
one. And many licenses will never be recommended by the wizard.

Alex.