Three new proposed OSD terms
Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M.
roddixon at cyberspaces.org
Sat Mar 5 01:15:09 UTC 2005
> Alex Rousskov writes:
>
>I am saying that the proposed solution will not work as intended. I hope
>there is
>already consensus regarding that.
>
>Whether the problem is real and whether there are any solutions is
>irrelevant for this
>discussion (and both questions require a good definition of what the
>alleged problem
>is).
As a new user to this list and as someone planning to release multiple
projects under one or more open source licenses, I can tell you that it is a
nightmare trying to determine the right license to use. This may be one of
the reasons the GPL is so widely used...by default just because it is the
most widely used, and not necessarily because it is the best for a
particular project. To research through the many licenses is either
extremely time consuming or extremely expensive.
Steve
--------
I understand your problem, but these problems can get overblown... Still,
the difficulty of drafting a new license is not caused by so-called license
proliferation. Instead, the difficulty arises from the fact that it is
plainly difficult to draft copyright licenses. Many in the open source
community ignore this fact by pretending that it is entirely sensible to
shift the risk of litigation onto programmers, who are too ready to believe
that they can do I. P. law without a license or training.
If you understand why you want to create an open source project, and are
clear about what you want to accomplish with the project, whether there are
10 or 10,000 preexisting licenses should be of little relevance to you (or
your lawyer). Access to a few readable examples or templates may help, and
that may be all you need. Programmers are not inventing the practice of law
afterall.
Rod
More information about the License-discuss
mailing list