license that allows modifications only through central authority.

[Greg London]

Hello,

I subscribed to this list long ago,
and seem to remember a discussion arising
about someone who wanted a license approved
that required all modifications to the
work to go through some central authority.
I believe it was shot down on the basis that
it was too restrictive, but I wouldn't know
where to start looking for any record of this,
or if OSI has any sort of position statement
on this approach to licensing a project.

Any URL's or pointers?

Or would OSI or anyone else care to comment
as to whether such a license would qualify
as meeting the Open Source Definition?

A creative interpretation of bullet 3

>The license must allow modifications and
>derived works, and must allow them to be
>distributed under the same terms as the
>license of the original software.

would say such a license would qualify as
meeting the OSD, because such a license
would allow modifications, but only through
the central authority, and these derivatives
would be distributed under the same license
that only allows derivatives through the
central authority.

My gut says the whole idea is just wrong.

Some direction would be appreciated.
I'm in a conversation with a person who
is trying to create a project under just
such a license, and I'd like for them to
be clear that such an approach wouldn't
be Free, Libre, Open, etc.

Thanks in advance,
Greg London

-- 
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