"De-approve" the Intel Open Source License

[Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M.]

How does de-approval of an OSI-approved license respond to the problem 
(whatever that might be)  of license proliferation? I am particularly 
interested in what problem Intel sees this maneuver as resolving.

-Rod
------------
Rod Dixon
www.cyberspaces.org

...... Original Message .......
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 10:55:19 -0500 "Smith, McCoy" <mccoy.smith at intel.com> 
wrote:
>I am the attorney at Intel Corporation responsible for Intel's legal
>practices and policies relating to open source.
>
> 
>
>Intel has been studying internally the issue of license proliferation.
>One step Intel would like to take to reduce license proliferation (both
>internally, and externally, to Intel) is to have the "Intel Open Source
>License" (aka "BSD License with Export Notice"
>http://www.opensource.org/licenses/intel-open-source-license.php )
>removed from future use as an approved OSI open source license.
>
> 
>
>It does not appear that the Intel Open Source License has found much use
>(there approximately 25 projects on SourceForge using the license, most
>of which appear to have been able to use just the plain BSD license
>without an export notice) and therefore Intel believes the lntel Open
>Source License could be removed from the approved list without causing
>significant problems.  We do however, think that the "de-approval" of
>this license should not be retroactive to past uses, since we do not
>wish to force companies (including Intel) and individuals to have to go
>through the trouble of re-licensing code they may have released in the
>past under Intel Open Source License when it was an OSI-approved
>license.  Perhaps a solution would be to categorize this license as
>"obsolete for future use" or something like that.
>
> 
>
>I hadn't seen anyone on the mailing list make this sort of request
>before so this may be a new idea that OSI hasn't ever done.  If you have
>any questions on this particular request or need more information, feel
>free to contact me via the license-discuss list (to which I am now
>subscribed).
>
> 
>
>McCoy Smith
>
>Intel Corporation
>
>Legal Department
>
>mccoy.smith at intel.com
>
> 
>