An explanation of the difficulty of solving licenseproliferation in one sentence

[Alex Bligh]

--On 09 March 2005 15:13 -0500 Ian Lance Taylor <ian at airs.com> wrote:

> The question here is what OSI should be encouraging.
> [...] Refusal of OSI certification does nothing to prevent the
> software from being developed and released.

True. I suppose at the root of the question is whether the OSI is
promoting Open Source Software for the benefit of the community,
or promoting Open Source Licenses for the benefit of the community.
There is a subtle distinction (unless one is of the view that choice
of license is everything). The OSI home page does not resolve this
ambiguity:

> Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit corporation dedicated to
> managing and promoting the Open Source Definition for the good of the
> community, specifically through the OSI Certified Open Source Software
> certification mark and program.

That say's it's promoting the OSD - surely not a goal in itself, at least
not in terms of evaluating changes to the OSD, or changing the OSD to say
"Campaign for free beer" would make it both shorter, and a lot easier to
promote :-)

Alex