GPLv3, again Re: what *is* the approval process? [was Re: License Committee Report for July 2007]

[Luis Villa]

On 8/1/07, Ernest Prabhakar <ernest.prabhakar at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Luis,
>
> On Jul 31, 2007, at 7:46 PM, Luis Villa wrote:
> > So... what lawyer is going to volunteer to write the necessary
> > analysis for v3?
> >
> > (crickets)

For what it is worth, I didn't meant this to imply that writing the
analysis was difficult or likely to fail, or that the lawyers on the
list are lazy, just that I'm guessing most of them have better ways of
spending their very limited time.

> That's probably not the gating factor here.   The real issue is
> ensuring the "many eyes" of this committee have evaluated GPLv3 vs.
> OSD. In practice, that usually means one person takes a stand and
> claims that it satisfies (or not) the various tenets of the OSD, and
> various people debate it back and forth.

That process was started a month ago (by Dibona and Flaschen), but
apparently that was insufficient to get it on the committee's radar. I
have assumed that the long-form analysis by a lawyer was the sticking
point, since every other meaningful/substantial part of the analysis
was already in motion a month ago. But if I'm wrong, and we're all OK
with ignoring that part of the rules, I've got no problem with that.
:)

> So, how about you, Luis? Are you willing to go on record saying that
> GPL3 is point-by-point compatible with the OSD?

(1) I'm not a lawyer, which the rules seem to require. (Just a law student.)
(2) At least one lawyer has already gone on the record doing so, so if
the requirement is 'be on the record', and not 'point by point
analysis', then we're already good to go.
(3) I've already got such an analysis written (informal, IANAL,
IANFSF, IANSFLC, yadda, yadda), but I decided not to post it in hopes
we could all agree with Larry and Rick's one-line assessments and move
on quickly with our lives.

Luis