For Approval: BSD License, PostgreSQL Variant

[Chris Travers]

On 10/10/07, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com> wrote:
> The "BSD License, PostgreSQL Variant" is obviously OSD-compliant and could
> be approved on that basis. But given that there is a vibrant PostgreSQL
> community that can ask for themselves, why is Chris Travers doing it for
> them?

Why was it necessary for someone other than Richard Stallman or Eben
Moglen to submit the GPL v3 for approval?

Would a rejection of the license make PostgreSQL any less open source?
 Certainly according to some people it would seem to....

I think that there is a serious problem that the OSI faces which has
not really reached a solution.  This is that there is a serious
tension between the interests of reducing license proliferation and
trying to be the ultimate measure of what is or is not open source.  I
have proposed at least one solution to this problem (push "license
variations" into a separate approval process and publish them as
cariations of other approved licenses, rather than giving them their
own listings).

The major concerns come from the fact that I invest a lot of time and
effort on PostgreSQL and other projects.  I do not believe that
PostgreSQL will ever change their license and this is based on both
public and provate conversations with core developers.

However comments like what is published at
http://www.opensource.org/node/163, and Rick;s comemtns about
Microsoft jumping the gun in classifying the MS Community License as
open source despite the fact that *everyone agrees* that it is OSD
compliant create a level of uncertainty over whether distributing open
soruce software under non-approved permissive licenses, and calling it
"open source" will cause problems later.

>
> Furthermore, when the PostgreSQL community actually considers submitting a
> license for approval, they may find it to be a good time to consider a
> better licensing solution altogether.

At least some core members have stated publically that, absent large
issues, they would consider any license change to be unethical and
would very actively oppose it.  The only time this has ever occurred
in the past was when they dropped the advertising clause.

I don't see the license changing absent some major problem.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers