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

[Zak Greant]

Moin moin David, Greetings All,

On Oct 11, 2007, at 23:45PDT (CA), David Woolley wrote:
> Shriramana Sharma wrote:
>
>> "open source" and the process of making your license OSI-approved  
>> carries a fee. USD 50 is INR 2000, Mr Terekhov -- that's not a  
>> small sum
>
> Firstly, my perception is that Alexander is hostile to the  OSI in  
> general, and he certainly is not responsible for OSI policy.   
> However, he wasn't proposing a fee for accepting licence  
> submissions which are submitted according to the correct  
> procedures, but one for submitting them in correct form based on  
> some (unspecified) simpler procedure.
>
> In that context USD 50 as a fixed fee is far too small.  It might  
> just cover minor variations on the BSD licence, but it will not  
> cover providing a proper legal analysis on any non-trivial  
> document; it may not even cover the time taken to extract missing  
> details from the submitter.

Nothing to ticket here.

>> for me, Mr Terekhov if I want to get my license OSI-approved.  
>> Often people writing OSS are enthusiasts and not necessary  
>> professional programmers who earn a lot.
>
> Programmers should be choosing existing licences.  If they really  
> have a new licensing requirement, they should be paying for the  
> services of a local lawyer.  However Alexander's proposal doesn't  
> require them to pay a fee, as long as they submit the request for  
> approval in the proper form.
>
> The situation is a bit like using an accountant to submit your tax  
> return.  In the UK, the government will even calculate your tax  
> without additional charge if you fill in the form, yourself, in  
> time, but many people use an accountant to make sure that the form  
> is completed properly and nothing to their advantage is missed.
>
> (You could also consider the fee as a penalty for badly formed  
> submissions, but that would probably compromise the not for profit  
> tax status of the main part of OSI.)

Nothing to ticket here.

Cheers!
--zak