RPL 1.5 discussion

[Matthew Flaschen]

Scott Shattuck wrote:

> Perhaps unsurprisingly there has been absolutely no action,
discussion, or other commenting on that
> submission.

Speaking for myself, I can say I found it difficult to make time to read
and comprehend such a long license.

> Apparently a quick vote on a license with no objections would have taken
> too long. Ok, that was probably uncalled for, but seriously folks, what
> the hell?

Now that I have considered the license, I have several comments.  Most
importantly, I object to the attribution clause in its current form.  It
has the same issues as earlier drafts of CPAL, but without the
compromises (e.g. only on one screen, 10 words, etc.) OSI agreed to.  I
would be reluctant to support any more attribution licenses until CPAL
has been out for a while (say a year).

I also find RPL unnecessarily complex.  This is because you seek to
specify every possible issue a court could consider (Jurisdiction,
arbitration,  U.S. government end users, value for patent lawsuits).  I
question whether all these stipulations will be effective, especially in
non-U.S. jurisdictions.

All these factors serve to make the license less likely to be reused.
Existing approved licenses (and others, such as Affero and Honest Public
License that haven't been submitted), such as the Open Software License
(http://opensource.org/licenses/osl-3.0.php) seem to serve approximately
the same purpose more efficiently.

Matt Flaschen