Jbilling: Possible unauthorised use of OSI Certified service mark

Sat Dec 30 06:43:33 UTC 2006

First of all, thank you Rick (and Matthew) for notifying us of an  
apparent violation of our Trademark.  We will follow up on it in the  
New Year.  The OSI Board relies on the participation of the Open  
Source Community to help us police the mark, so this is a huge help.

For the record, the OSI Board is happy that Social Text has taken the  
step of submitting proposed future mods to their license for  
consideration by License-Discuss.  It took a lot of discussion to get  
one of these Attribution License companies to take this step, mostly  
because there was a lot of fear on the part of all those companies  
that they would be misunderstood and harshly criticized by the  
sometimes acerbic License-Discuss community when they were in fact  
trying to do the right thing.

Can we please accept Social Text's actions in the positive light in  
which they were initiated?  In my experience Ross is pretty good  
about making fixes.  I believe him if he says he missed your earlier  
suggestion Rick.  Ross is very aware that their current licensing  
situation is not OSI approved.  He submitted the GAP in hopes that it  
would be discussed (including potential mods to it if necessary) and  
eventually approved so they could move to use it.  We who read  
License-Discuss every day are used to a quick and sometimes  
contradictory discourse...it's a discussion list afterall.  But if  
you're not used to it, it might be difficult to discern what is  
friendly banter and what could be taken as practical, actionable advice.

So, on the subject of attribution and where the line should be drawn  
between acceptable and unacceptable attribution requirements in Open  
Source licenses, we've seen some useful discussion before and since  
Social Text submitted the GAP.  The Board met in December and felt  
that there was still more discussion necessary.  Once everyone gets  
back to work in January, Russ Nelson (who is the OSI Board member  
responsible for the License-Discuss report to the Board) will digest  
the discussion that's happened so far and start asking questions to  
focus the discussion to answer some questions the Board has.

In the meantime, Happy Holidays (which ever ones you celebrate, even  
if its just a few days off from work :-) ) to everyone out there in  
License-Discuss land.

Danese

On Dec 29, 2006, at 10:16 PM, Ross Mayfield wrote:

> I'm not going to engage in fisking arguments by email.  I might have
> lost your prior comments in the 100 fold thread that didn't yield that
> much substance against the GAP.
>
> I'll point to a link that should help clarify the steps Socialtext has
> taken in good faith, and what we did to clarify our license.
> http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3430
>
> I did amend the blog post tonight to provide a link to the license.
>
> We did not submit the SPL which is consistent with OSD --  and instead
> sought to address the general problem we all face through the GAP.
> And we would never use the OSI Certified mark unless under an OSI
> approved.  That's the point.
>
> Ross
>
>
> On 12/29/06, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
>> 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
>>
>>
>
>
> -- 
> --
> Ross Mayfield
> CEO
> Socialtext, Inc.
> ross.mayfield at socialtext.com
> aim:rossdmayfield
> skype:rossmayfield
> t. +1-650-323-0800
> f. +1-650-323-0801
> company: http://www.socialtext.com
> weblog: http://ross.typepad.com
> many-to-many: http://www.corante.com/many
> this email is: [ ] bloggable [ x ] ask first [ ] private