An explanation of the difficulty of solving license proliferation in one sentence

[Alvin Oga]

hi ya

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005, Rick Moen wrote:

> Joel West wrote:
> 
> > for the record, calling Larry "controversial" was not intended as a
> > slam. He's very knowledgeable (if not the most knowledgeable) in this
> > area.

and more importantly... his/their "legal"  documents will probably have a
fairly good chance of standing up in court

> And the facts in this case are that Larry Rosen has propounded the
> merits of contract-based licensing and exploring the possible need for
> positive indications of licence asset, e.g., via clickwrap agreements --
> which many find unpalatable, but not for any fault of Rosen's in
> substantiating his view.  (This was in the much larger context of his
> more-substantive work as OSI general counsel and secretary.)

and have extensive "legal" knowlege of the issues at hand 

> On reflection, saying Mr. Rosen has "strongly held views" in _this_
> group seems rather comical, in context.  Compared to whom?  If he'd
> "controversial" in the rather artificially stripped-down sense you
> outlined, then the rest of us are a veritable firestorm.

i think that engineers making legal documents ( yet another license ) is
the same as lawyers dictating software specifications for coding, 
( just my view of the world )

> The "controversy" seems to be pretty much your invention 

some controversy is good ... everybody can learn from it ..

> OSI -- and its trusted personnel like Larry Rosen -- have a track record
> of acting for the benefit of open source.  The other guys don't.

yup

c ya
alvin