BSD-like licenses and the OSI approval process

[Lawrence Rosen]

Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> Go ahead Larry, work hard on reviewing it all day and night, I'll most
> likely die before seeing you in court asserting copyright on such
> collection.

What is there about the collection that I would need to assert? I'm using
AFL 3.0 because I intend to give my collection away to the public, while
only protecting myself from fools and villains who want to sue me for doing
good deeds.

Isn't that the real motivation for all BSD-like open source licenses?

Don't worry, I'll get you to click on "I ACCEPT" when you first download or
sign up for an account on my website so that my rights under AFL 3.0 are
protected without you having to die first. :-) 

/Larry


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alexander Terekhov [mailto:alexander.terekhov at gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 11:49 AM
> To: lrosen at rosenlaw.com
> Cc: License Discuss
> Subject: Re: BSD-like licenses and the OSI approval process
> 
> On 10/12/07, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com> wrote:
> > Alexander Terekhov keeps finding silly reasons to object:
> > > "When the collecting of the preexisting material that makes up the
> > > compilation is a purely mechanical task with no element of editorial
> > > selection, or when only a few minor deletions constitute an
> > > abridgment, copyright protection for the compilation or abridgment as
> > > a new version is not available. "
> >
> > The creative aspects of my AFL 3.0-licensed collection of harvested
> > BSD-licensed works include my review of each of those BSD-licensed
> > components to ensure that:
> 
> [... Rosen's hard review work ...]
> 
> Well, I suppose that your case regarding assertion of copyright on a
> compilation of BSD-licensed components might fly in court if your
> collection would fit on a 360 KB diskette or (at most) on a late 20th
> century Iomega Zip drive.
> 
> But as long as you want to harvest and review the entirety of
> BSD-licensed components available on the net, all I can say is this:
> 
> Go ahead Larry, work hard on reviewing it all day and night, I'll most
> likely die before seeing you in court asserting copyright on such
> collection.
> 
> regards,
> alexander.
> 
> --
> "PJ points out that lawyers seem to have difficulty understanding the
> GPL. My main concern with GPLv3 is that - unlike v2 - non-lawyers can't
> understand it either."
>                        -- Anonymous Groklaw Visitor