Three new proposed OSD terms
Russell Nelson
nelson at crynwr.com
Thu Mar 3 17:57:15 UTC 2005
Alex Rousskov writes:
> [ Moreover, I doubt the new rules can reject 50% of new
> submissions; humans, including lawyers, are very adaptive. ]
They're judgement calls. The first term alone gives us the discretion
to say "But your license is just like all the other licenses that
comply with the open source definition." because it ultimately has to
comply with the open source definition.
> b) The proposed terms have nothing to do with Open Source Definition,
> IMHO. Only the vague rule #12 is remotely related to what Open Source
> means or should mean. However, as others pointed out, it is not clear
> whether it is possible to write a clear, simple, and understandable legal
> document these days.
Yes, it's possible. One thing you can do is hide legally required
language behind definitions. So instead of saying "change, modify,
compile, or edit", you make that a definition for "Change".
> Let the market forces decide what is clear and simple enough.
That's what we've been doing ... and people are not happy with that.
I think it's been working reasonably well, but still, people are not
happy and we need to recognize that.
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