OVPL and the OSI Board on Thursday

[Russell Nelson]

David Barrett writes:
 > Before I can make an informed decision, I need to know which way the OSI 
 > board is leaning, or at least have some indication as to when I'll learn 
 > which way they lean.

It's approvable as far as I can see.  However we also have license
proliferation issues to worry about.  The OVPL is derived from the
CDDL.  As a derivative work, it makes two types of changes:
improvements to the CDDL, and semantic changes necessary to achieve
the desired ends.

I think that mixing those two changes is a bad idea.

In the software realm, patches that fix too much code are difficult to
understand and manager of the software is reluctant to apply them.
The people who wrote the CDDL are neither stranger nor strangers.  I
think that the changes from the CDDL to the OVPL are genuinely
improvements to the CDDL.  They should not go into the OVPL, but
instead into the CDDL.

The semantic changes (which I agree are necessary to achieve the
stated ends) should also slot cleanly into the CDDL.  No renumbering
terms with identical text.

This is just my opinion, and I can be talked out of it.  One way to do
that is to tell me that I don't understand the law, and there are
legal reasons why my suggestions cannot be adopted.  Another way would
be to show that you've tried to work with the CDDL folks and they've
been uncooperative.

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