[triage] Re: For Approval: Boost Software License - Version 1.0 - August 17th, 2003

[Zak Greant]

Good Afternoon Russ, Greetings All,

On Oct 10, 2007, at 20:04PDT (CA), Russ Nelson wrote:

> David Abrahams writes:
>> You mean there are other portions than what's described there?  What
>> are the other portions and where are they described?
>
> I'm repeatedly totally amazed when computer scientists can't execute
> an algorithm.  Step #1 first, followed by the next step, and the next
> and the next.

Nothing to ticket here.

> Notice the logical flaw in that sentence?  "repeatedly amazed"?  Yes,
> you screwed up by not following instructions.  However since I have
> adequate evidence at this point that the instructions CANNOT be
> followed, it is my bad that the instructions exist in the form they
> do.  My apologies.

Nothing to ticket here.

> Basically, we need to change something because at least half the
> license approval submissions are technically rejectable because they
> didn't follow the instructions.  I mean, Jon Rosenburg from Microsoft
> even asked me "Hey, are we doing this right, because we don't want egg
> on our faces" <------- not a direct quote but that's surely what he
> meant.
>
> So, we don't know what needs to be different, but something needs to
> be different.  It's not your fault for doing something wrong when most
> people do it wrongly.  It's just not.

Nothing to ticket here.

>> I get the impression from what you've written here that
>> license-approval was supposed to be for non-public information
>> relating to approval requests (what would that be?) and all the  
>> public
>> information is supposed to have been sent to license-discuss, but
>> AFAICT there's nothing on OSI's website that makes it clear.
>
> Oh dear.  It's happening again.  I sent you the URL
> (http://opensource.org/approval), I expected you to read and
> comprehend it, and you failed.
>
> If people repeatedly fail to comprehend something, it is the fault of
> the author, not the reader.
>
> But I don't know what to do differently.  The instructions seem pretty
> clearly written.  Danese suggests that better software tools would  
> help.

Nothing to ticket here.

>> One set of self-consistent instructions and a *single* submission
>> address would be a good start.
>
> http://opensource.org/approval
>
> I tried having a single submission address earlier, and that didn't
> work.  Submissions got lost because they only went to me.  As it is,
> any emails sent to license-approval which don't have a "For Approval"
> in their subject are summarily discarded.  There's WAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY
> too much spam coming to that address.

Nothing to ticket here.

>> You might also consider taking a cue from Boost's library approval
>> process, which seems to work pretty well.  We have a couple people
>> ("review wizards") who maintain a queue of incoming requests and
>> schedule dates for open review of each submission, with a "review
>> manager" appointed for each review.
>
> What software tools do they use?

Nothing to ticket here.

--zak