Three new proposed OSD terms

[Joel West]

On 10:38 AM -0700 3/3/05, Alex Rousskov doth scribe:
> Duplicative licenses aren't a major problem *as long as they're> mutually compatible*.

Not true.  Martin Fink has a problem at HP.  He can only deploy
software if HP's IT department has approved the license.

This is not a major problem, IMO. HP can allocate enough resources to
quickly review all 100 or 200 licenses that OSI is going to approve in
the next few years (and licenses outside of OSI are outside of this
discussion scope).

The problem is even simpler than this. Duplicative licenses only
matter if significant code is developed with them. Martin only notices
if his customer or ISVs or VARs want to use the license.

So again, the key issue is funneling 98% of the significant code to 10
license rather than keeping the number of possible licenses < 100.
IMHO, trying to control licenses through a central authority is like a
command economy. Doesn't it make sense to have competition for
developer and user loyalty among open source licenses -- just like we
have for open source projects.

Joel

-- 
Joel West <svosrp at gmail.com>
Silicon Valley Open Source Research Project
http://www.cob.sjsu.edu/OpenSource/