An explanation of the difficulty of solving license proliferation in one sentence
Adriano Galano
adriano at satec.es
Wed Mar 9 18:06:11 UTC 2005
Hey guys:
Why not stop your "road to no way" discusssion?
Why not began a public survey/consultation to the FLOSS
community about what they want (corporates and individual
developers)?
Best regards,
-Adriano
On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 12:40:59 -0500
"David Dillard" <david.dillard at veritas.com> wrote:
>Hmmm...
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Forrest J. Cavalier III
>>[mailto:mibsoft at mibsoftware.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 12:30 PM
>> To: Open Source License Discussion List
>> Cc: Forrest J. Cavalier III
>> Subject: Re: An explanation of the difficulty of solving
>> license proliferation in one sentence
>>
>> > Software that meets the Open Source Definition is Open
>>Source. OSI
>> > should do its job and certify it.
>>
>> Agreed. If the OSI wants to change its definition of
>>its
>> job, then someone else will spring up to safeguard the
>>OSD.
>>
>> I've been patiently waiting for Nelson, Fink, and
>>Raymond to
>> come to their senses this week.
>>
>> Hasn't happened. So here's a cluestick.
>>
>> If fewer and compatible licenses are needed in order to
>>allow
>> the big corporate interests easy picking, then it is
>>kind of
>> hard to hold a middle ground: Everyone must accept the
>>GPL.
>> It wins by sheer numbers.
>
>"Fewer" does not mean "one."
>
>
>
>> If that is unacceptable, then someone pushing for this
>>would
>> be kind to present a rational argument for allowing
>>other
>> licenses to exist that also excludes new licenses.
>>
>> Licenses exist to serve the needs of the SOFTWARE
>>AUTHORS.
>> Since there are many, many more small organizations
>>writing
>> software, they deserve preference. Licenses are not,
>>and
>> should not be, written primarily to conform to the needs
>>of
>> the licensees,
>
>Primarily? No. But if open source authors want their
>software to be
>adopted by as wide an audience as possible, they SHOULD
>carefully choose
>the license they use.
>
>
>
>> and especially not primarily to the needs of
>> big corporate licensees so that "more big corps get on
>>board
>> open-source software."
>
>Are you against making ANY changes to help corporations
>use open source?
>If so, why?
>
>
>
>> If a project wants to use a license that is not well
>>accepted
>> and not compatible with other licenses, then yes, they
>>should
>> be gently reminded of that at license submission, but
>>they
>> must remain free to do that and take the consequences of
>> incompatibility.
>>
>> Why should they care if their OSD-compliant vanity
>>license
>> conflicts with all of HP's open source IP? They should
>>care
>> by natural consequences, not artificial ones. They have
>> incentive enough to create compatible IP, without the
>>OSI
>> deciding FOR THEM.
>>
>> Make no mistake, these 3 principles are not about
>>reducing
>> OSI workload, it is a method that LICENSEES are
>>attempting to
>> force artificial consequences onto authors who desire to
>> release OSS software under licenses incompatible with
>> someone's "approved list."
>
>It's not about "forcing," it's about "asking." There's
>no way for a
>licensee to force a licensor to change their license.
>
>Open Source is supposed to be community. People in a
>community
>cooperate, that's what makes it a community.
>
>
>
>> That someone wants to create artificial consequences is
>>just
>> one of the opening salvos in the next OSS war: locking
>> everything into a few licenses using patent grants and
>>mutual
>> termination clauses.
>>
>> That will play out in our lifetimes, but it seems that
>>HP et
>> al can't wait and want to shoehorn projects into a
>>smaller
>> subset of licenses now.
>>
>> I predict that if OSI makes the 3 new conditions part of
>> license approval, it will soon lose its power to
>>influence
>> opinion of those who really matter: AUTHORS who are
>> philosophically aligned with the OSD. Some other
>> organization will spring up to guard the OSD which is
>>not
>> "serving two masters."
>>
>> Actually, I don't even know why I'm writing. I'm not at
>>all
>> concerned about this gambit. At worst, the OSI will
>> marginalize itself, again.
>>
>> It still irks me that the people who formed the OSI
>>really
>> bungled (and still bungle) the branding strategy that
>>was
>> going to be important to increase FLOSS acceptance
>> commercially. Tis a pity. How many years did it take
>>to get
>> a logo? Who's enforcing its application now?
>>
>> Does Raymond still think he is doing all the pushing
>>towards
>> commercial OSS acceptance? High profile stories like
>>SCO vs
>> IBM, GNU/Linux, Firefox, and OpenOffice have done way
>>more
>> than the OSI's non-attempts like high profile open
>>source branding.
>>
>> These 3 "making it simpler for suits" principles are not
>> going to help as intended either. (Oh, something will
>> CHANGE, but that isn't the same as HELP."
>>
>>
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