what *is* the approval process?

[dlw]

"Finally, there are some on this list who are trolls (in the sense that 
they simply want to present an inflamatory point of view in order to get 
a response), and there are others on this list who do have different 
opinions including concerns over standard copyleft theory (myself 
included). There is a difference and we should not forget that."

Hmmmmm.

It seems open source licenses are inevitably crafted to conform to a 
political goal --- legal principles and history be damned.
Why craft an open source license that is tantamount to legal gibberish?

For an open source license to be effective it must exposed to rational 
criticism concerning statutory law and case law precedents for the 
sovereign jurisdiction in which it is expected to be used. This is done 
by citing to statutory law and court case decisions for "authority" to 
claim what you say is true . . . that is how the courts do it. Even the 
Supreme Court of the United States cites to statutory and case law 
"stare decisis" to explain its decisions.
 
Why craft a license that doesn't state a sovereign choice of law 
jurisdiction? Who in their right mind would expect a license written for 
a United States jurisdiction to be interpreted the same way in each of 
the sundry jurisdictions of Europe?

There are those who regularly post to this discussion board that still 
deny that a copyright license is a contract under U.S.
federal case law --- notwithstanding eighty years of uncontradicted 
Federal case law stating otherwise -- now that is pure political gibberish.

Almost all open source licenses authorize blanket copying of 
*unmodified* source code. These license then attempt in some way to 
regulate *modfied* or derivative works based on that original unmodified 
code. Can derivative work distribution under
these license give rise to charges of copyright infringement? Before you 
answer google the phrase <"work will be considered a derivative work">.

"In addition, "[a] work will be considered a derivative work only if it 
would be considered an infringing work if the material which it has 
derived from a preexisting work had been taken without the consent of a 
copyright proprietor of such preexisting work." Mirage Editions v. 
Albuquerque A.R.T. Co., 856 F.2d 1341, 1343 (quoting 1 Nimmer on Copy- 
right S 3.01 (1986))"
*Micro Star v. FormGen Inc.* 154 F.3d 1107 (9th Cir. 1998).

 The answer is the unmodified blanket copying grant in the first part of 
the license makes it impossible to find any infringing
code in the modified derivative work. The two sections of the license 
contradict  their respective intents. This issue is present
in almost all "grant back" open source license.