For Approval: The Simplified BSD License

[Lawrence Rosen]

> > > THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
> >
> > CONTRIBUTORS needs defining.  In my view, the warranty disclaimer should
> > only be imposed in relation to those persons that are listed in the
> > associated list of copyright owners.  With BSD style licencing, it
> > should be possible for someone to contribute to create a proprietary
> > fork and give some warranties (even though most software vendors would
> > rather not give warranties).
> 
> I am not ticketing this issue.
> 
> While I typically would, these are both well-understood issues and the
> license needs to be approved (or not) as it is.

It would be helpful to remember such comments somewhere. It doesn't affect
license approval, but it ought to affect license adoption. Why not retain at
least the intelligent comments about how licenses work (or don't work)?

/Larry


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Zak Greant [mailto:zak.greant at gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 6:20 PM
> To: David Woolley
> Cc: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: For Approval: The Simplified BSD License
> 
> On 9/7/07, David Woolley <forums at david-woolley.me.uk> wrote:
> > Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
> >
> > I don't like the word "Simplified". It has connotations of dumbing down.
> >   I think BSD Licence without Endorsements Clause would be much clearer.
> 
> Ticketed as https://osi.osuosl.org/ticket/50
> 
> >
> > > All rights reserved.
> >
> > Maybe I don't understand this phrase (IANAL), but it seems to me that
> > the whole point of the BSD style licence is to un-reserve many rights!
> > Creative Commons use of the phrase "some rights reserved" seems to be
> > consistent with my interpretation.  On my interpretation, this makes the
> > result self contradictory and therefore potentially void.
> 
> I am not ticketing this issue.
> 
> > > THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
> >
> > CONTRIBUTORS needs defining.  In my view, the warranty disclaimer should
> > only be imposed in relation to those persons that are listed in the
> > associated list of copyright owners.  With BSD style licencing, it
> > should be possible for someone to contribute to create a proprietary
> > fork and give some warranties (even though most software vendors would
> > rather not give warranties).
> 
> I am not ticketing this issue.
> 
> While I typically would, these are both well-understood issues and the
> license needs to be approved (or not) as it is.
> 
> --
> Cheers!
> --zak