OVPL and the OSI Board on Thursday

[Alex Bligh]

Pablo,

> I understand completely what you mean. But I have two questions, more,
> how can I say: "systemic"
>
> The OVPL, is an improvement of CDDL or just a brand new fork of this one?

It is a brand new fork. The license-back provision is (almost certainly)
not what is wanted in "mainstream" CDDL. It (incidentally) contains
some clear-ups.

> Could be "re-forked" the OVPL license for another needs?, what i mean:
> The brand new changes in OVPL could
> stop some "future" proliferations, because this would be an importan
> reason to stop from OVPL to ahead more
> OVPL proliferations, so, more licenses proliferations.

I'm not sure I quite understand what you're asking here. If the question is
whether anyone can use the OVPL for any project, the answer is yes. If the
question is can anyone use the OVPL text to fork into another liense, yes
(so long as they don't pretend it's the OVPL), but clearly OSI approval is
another question. If the question is does the license-back provision in
the OVPL help with license compatibility (and thus help anti-proliferation
measures), then yes there is that argument (see the FAQ on openvendor.org).

> As you Say, I think tha OVPL could be accepted like an OSI license. The
> only thing worried about it if more versions
> of OVPL from You or from another person/group could get some forkes of
> this license.

In terms of future versions from us, you'll note the version-rolling
provisions.

In terms of future "forks" by others, you raise an interesting question.
Should license authors prevent use of their own license terms in
other people's licenses in the interests of discouraging proliferation?

I don't think that's a good idea. I think it's pretty much up to the author
how they license things. Proliferation issues are for those who might want
to use them, or recommend them (OSI etc.). Whilst I respect other license
authors' views, if we all started from scratch and prohibited others from
using our improvements, licenses would be MORE incompatible, and open
source licenses in general would be the worse for it. I think it would
be somewhat ironic if the open-source community started close-sourcing
its own license texts. I should note Lawrence Rosen has a powerful
counterargument re open-sourcing the licenses themselves.

Alex