[License-discuss] Alternative Proposal: The OSI licensing pages

[Henrik Ingo]

Seems that I was wrong about linking back at least when it comes to
Black Duck's Top 20 list:
http://osrc.blackducksoftware.com/data/licenses/index.php

In this case, it seems we could simply refer to the Black Duck list as
a somewhat authoritative source of most popular licenses. Any other
credible research facility producing a similar list that links back to
the license on opensource.org is also welcome.

henrik

On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 9:49 PM, Henrik Ingo <henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi> wrote:
> Larry, I think the text below is a constructive proposal. I understand
> (and to me that's perfectly fine) that Luis does not intend to change
> the short list of popular licenses at this time, yet when that is up
> for discussion I think the below is one good route out of this.
>
> In terms of usability it's unfortunate that the FSF, Black Duck etc do
> not link back to the opensource.org pages for each license, so it is
> still worthwile if we can agree on a list of our own that would do
> exactly that. (Of course, we might not agree, but there's a point in
> trying...)
>
> I just wanted to throw in another thought for when that day comes. A
> current issue for me is not so much picking one good license for my
> own project, rather let's say I develop software for some use case
> (for me web and SaaS software) and I'd like a lawyer to pre-approve a
> list of licenses out of which I can freely consume FOSS software for
> that use case. Now it is in my interest to get a list that looks
> short, yet covers as much FOSS software as possible.
>
> Of course, I can use resources like Black Duck to get such a list, but
> if it would be possible for OSI to agree on and host a page which
> starts with the sentence: "Based on studies [footnote1, footnote2...]
> we believe that more than 90% of open source software ever published
> uses one of the following licenses:"
>
> Then it would of course start with GPLv2, the other GPLs, Apache, BSD,
> MIT, Mozilla, Eclipse etc...
>
> My point is that to me it doesn't really matter whether those are
> considered good or bad licenses (my lawyer will then reject any he
> doesn't like), I just like to know which licenses are used a lot.
>
> henrik
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 8:51 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com> wrote:
>> Karl Fogel wrote:
>>
>> As has been explained multiple times, Luis's current proposal is
>> intentionally based on something that was determined a long time ago, and he
>> is doing it this way in order to be able to take one small step now -- and
>> not have it bottlenecked by the larger & more complex discussion that needs
>> to happen to update that list.  I think Mike has pointed this out too.
>>
>>
>>
>> LER recommends that this is what the OSI landing page ought to say:
>>
>>
>>
>> ************
>>
>>
>>
>> An alphabetical listing of all Currently Approved open source licenses is
>> shown here. <link>
>>
>>
>>
>> The Currently Approved list excludes those licenses that have been replaced
>> with more recent versions (in which case the most recent version has been
>> listed above), or that have been deprecated by their original authors. A
>> list of Replaced and Deprecated licenses can be found here. <link>
>>
>>
>>
>> Several organizations maintain lists of licenses that they prefer to be used
>> for contributions or that they recommend for their community participants.
>> Among these Preferred lists are the following:
>>
>>
>>
>> ·        Free Software Foundation (FSF) <link>
>>
>> ·        OSI License Proliferation Committee Report <link> [to be updated
>> someday?]
>>
>> ·        Apache Software Foundation <link>
>>
>> ·        Eclipse Foundations <link>
>>
>> ·        Google/Android <link>
>>
>> ·        Mozilla Foundation <link>
>>
>> ·        Linux Foundation <link>
>>
>> ·        Open Solaris <link>
>>
>> ·        Etc.
>>
>>
>>
>> Various organizations identify Popular open source licenses based on surveys
>> and other criteria. These lists are available on their websites:
>>
>>
>>
>> ·        Black Duck Software <link>
>>
>> ·        Etc.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> License-discuss mailing list
>> License-discuss at opensource.org
>> http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
>>
>
>
>
> --
> henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi
> +358-40-8211286 skype: henrik.ingo irc: hingo
> www.openlife.cc
>
> My LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=9522559



-- 
henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi
+358-40-8211286 skype: henrik.ingo irc: hingo
www.openlife.cc

My LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=9522559