Three new proposed OSD terms
Russell Nelson
nelson at crynwr.com
Wed Mar 2 15:09:35 UTC 2005
We have always pushed people in this direction, but by adding these
terms to the OSD, we will be proactively refusing licenses which don't
meet these requirements.
11. *The license must not be duplicative.* That is, it is up to the
submitter to demonstrate that the license solves a problem not
sufficiently addressed by an existing certified license. Certification
may be denied to any submitted license, even a technically OSD-
conformant license, if OSI deems it duplicative.
12. *The license must be clearly written, simple, and understandable.*
Open-source licenses are written to serve people who are not
attorneys, and they need to be comprehensible by people who are
not attorneys. OSI may deny certification to licenses which,
though technically correct and OSD-compliant, are so obscure
and complicated that an intelligent layperson cannot be assured
of knowing his or her rights and liabilities after reading it.
The burden of engineering this clarity falls on the submitter.
13. *The license must be reusable*. If the license contains proper
names of individuals, associations, or projects, these must be
incorporated by reference from an attachment that declares the
names of the issuer and any other cited parties, and which can be
modified without changing the terms of the license. As the sole
exception, the license may name its owner and steward.
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