Jbilling: Possible unauthorised use of OSI Certified service mark

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ross Mayfield (ross.mayfield at socialtext.com):

> You have done a service by pointing out this alleged breach of the OSI
> Certified trademark by this corporation.

Thank you for saying that.

> However, ONLY ONE company that employs a provision similar to the
> Generic Attribution Provision has breached this trust.  I believe you
> have provided another reason for the GAP to be minded by OSI.

Hmm, only one company mentioned (out of 20) actually is implementiong
GAP:  Intalio.  Every other one of the other 19 licences I cited,
including the one your company _uses_, i.e., Socialtext Public Licence
1.0.0, seems to me to require a considerably more expansive
implementation of "attribution" than does the GAP clause.

> It is inaccurate to say that NOT ONE company has applies for OSI
> approval, that is precisely what Socialtext has.

Do you mean you have submitted _Socialtext Public Licence 1.0.0_ for OSI
certification?  I attempted to search for any such indication, and found
none.

I respect highly Socialtext's intent in bringing the GAP memo in front
of the OSI Board, but it is my understanding that your firm uses SPL
1.0.0, _not_ MPL + GAP (which Intalio proposes to use), for its
wiki software.  What I said to the Board was, of course, that none of
the 19 firms referenced in my bullet list had submitted the licences
they _use_ (and claim in public to be open source) to the Board for
certification.

Socialtext's commendable intent seems noteworthy despite the fact that
Socialtext substantively ignored the process detailed on
http://www.opensource.org/docs/certification_mark.php by not submitting
a _licence_ at all, but rather a patch that Socialtext evidently wishes
the Board to consider as applied to some unspecified fraction of the 58
existing OSI Certified licence (those with modifiable content).

> And we clarified this blog post to say more than we were MPL with an
> addendum, and have had the license available our open source wiki
> since inception.

Thank you for doing that, retroactively.  Your edit appears to have been
implemented _within the past hour_, I will note.  As you know, I'd
mentioned the misstatement of fact twice on license-discuss twice, the
earlier time having been on Dec. 20, i.e., right in front of you, nine
days ago.

> Deplorable is a strong word in the context of a community, especially
> a welcoming one.

Asking the Board to formally deplore the particular patterns of activity
I cited seems amply merited by the problem those 20 firms have created.
In fact, it strikes me as extremely mild, in the circumstances.  Other
actions, such as yours in sending and posting the GAP memo, should be 
praised and are quite appreciated.

Best Regards,
Rick Moen