InfoWorld: Pentaho opens up further (Exhibit B to real MPL)

[Radcliffe, Mark]

Since I assisted Ross with the submission to OSI, I think the list
should be aware that the submission was meant to get an attribution
provision approved that would work in a variety of circumstances to
avoid numerous licenses with slightly different "attribution"
provisions. Our goal was to get a standard approach rather than having
each company submit a different version of attribution (please note that
the SugarCRM attribution provision varies from Zimbra attribution
provision). Since virtually all OSI approved licenses do not permit
modifications, we thought that the number of licenses that would be
effected would be small and this approach was the best for the industry.
Clearly based on the comments, this approach does not have support. We
are revising the attribution provision and Socialtext will be submitting
it as part of the MPL.

The submission will include significant additional changes to
attribution provision to reflect the other concerns expressed on the
list. The summary on buni.org was particularly helpful in focusing us on
the problems with GAP and we want to thank those who contributed to it.

The reason that neither Socialtext nor the other companies have adopted
the draft attribution provision is that they do not want to repeatedly
change their license. It creates both legal and practical problems if
you only use a license for a couple of months. If the license is
approved by OSI, they will have a strong incentive to adopt it. It will
also avoid increasing the problem of license proliferation. 

We expect to submit the new version next week. I have asked the OSI
Board to delay a review of the GAP since it is no longer being
considered by Socialtext.

I think that it might be useful to correct some mistakes about my role
in OSI and attribution:

1. I advised SugarCRM on its attribution provision which was released in
October 2004. This date was prior to my consideration to be General
Counsel of the OSI. I first applied to be General Counsel in December,
2004 and was appointed in January 2005.

2. I am not an officer of OSI and OSI has never taken a position on
attribution so it is incorrect to suggest that my advice on attribution
is inconsistent with OSI's position. In particular, the AAL had already
been adopted before I became the General Counsel so OSI had already
approved an attribution based license. I have been very open with the
Board from the beginning about my role in developing attribution and my
belief that it is consistent with the OSD.

3. The services I provide to OSI and my work as Chair of Committee C
reviewing the GPLv3 are provided pro bono. In other words, for free. In
fact, my law firm has provided over $100,000 in legal services at no
charge  to the open source community through our work with the OSI and
the FSF.


-----Original Message-----
From: David Woolley [mailto:david at djwhome.demon.co.uk] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 1:18 PM
To: license-discuss at opensource.org
Subject: Re: InfoWorld: Pentaho opens up further (Exhibit B to real MPL)

> 2.  It's OSI that is being slow on the attribution debate, not the
> companies.  A license has been submitted.  The ball is in OSI's court.
As

No licence has been validly submitted.  Either it wasn't announced on
this
mailing list, or you are referring to the out of context clauses

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