For Approval: Boost Software License - Version 1.0 - August 17th, 2003

[David Woolley]

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.

> 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.)

-- 
David Woolley
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