[License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process

[Allison Randal]

On 02/26/2012 09:41 PM, Bruce Perens wrote:
> 
> I had to help Bob Jacobsen, an Open Source developer who chose one of
> those over-simple licenses, the Artistic License 1.0, written by Larry
> Wall the Programmer. Bob had someone who both used his program in a
> product without even attributing it to him, and /also /asked Bob for
> lots of money for infringing his patent and tried to get Bob fired from
> his job by filing an FOIA with his employer. This was all over /model
> train software./
> 
> When Bob turned to Larry's Artistic License to help him get the guy off
> of his back, the Artistic License failed in court. We put a good team
> together and turned that around on appeal, but it was a close thing. By
> the time we were done, Bob had spent 5 years on the case, was out a good
> deal of money, and his relationship with his employer was damaged.

That's inappropriate FUD on the Artistic License. The ruling in question
on the Jacobsen v. Katzer case was not specific to the Artistic License
1.0, it was a statement that violation of the conditions of *any*
nonexclusive open source license would not be grounds for a copyright
infringement claim. Fortunately, we did all join together and get that
reversed.

Please keep in mind that while copyright-based licenses are well
established in general, there is very little actual precedent in case
law. A large part of establishing that case law will be a matter of
working together, and *not* flinging FUD at other people's licenses.

Allison