Three new proposed OSD terms
Chuck Swiger
chuck at codefab.com
Wed Mar 2 22:27:06 UTC 2005
Russell Nelson <nelson at crynwr.com> wrote:
[ ...abbreviate the three proposed terms... ]
"*The license must be reusable*"
+1. The ability to reuse a license for other open source projects is a
fundamental issue which belongs with the other basic criteria found in
the OSD.
"*The license must be clearly written, simple, and understandable.*"
+1.
"*The license must not be duplicative.*"
-1. The OSD does not incorporate the list of approved licenses into
the definition, yet this term cannot be evaluated without considering
already-approved licenses. I think that the OSD should be
self-contained, and that a license ought to be evaluated on its own
merits vis-a-vis compliance with the OSD. It doesn't make much sense
to claim that a duplicative license is not OSD-compliant if the
original version was.
For example, the X.Net license is pretty much the MIT license plus the
clause: "This agreement shall be governed in all respects by the laws
of the State of California and by the laws of the United States of
America." Likewise, the Intel Open Source License is pretty much
identical to the old 3-clause BSD license plus the US export
restrictions clause.
The X.Net and Intel Open Source licenses currently are OSD-compliant,
yet are duplicative and contain language which is not universally
reusable. I don't think these licenses should be de-certified, yet
neither does it seem useful to keep adding yet another
BSD-license-plus-jurisdiction clause variant to the list of
OSI-approved licenses.
Perhaps it would be helpful to seperate the notion of OSD-compliance
with the issue of OSI certification? If someone submits a duplicative
license, and we agree that this proposed license is compliant with the
OSD, maybe list it somewhere as an acceptable derivative of the
original OSI-approved license, but not award it seperate certification?
--
-Chuck
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