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

[Lawrence Rosen]

Bruce Perens wrote:
> > About the worst thing engineers can do is attempt to make legal
> > determinations without proper counsel and the necessary training.
> > They invariably get it wrong and they can be made to look really
> > stupid in court by a competent expert witness.

Chad Perrin responded:
> This could turn out to be a huge problem for any independent open
> source software developer who is not wealthy.  The only really safe 
> approach to open source software development, given the above, 
> would be "Don't."

Those are both silly conclusions. Quite frankly, I don't understand what
Chad and Bruce are arguing about.

A truly independent open source software developer probably has nothing to
fear other than personal embarrassment. It is the larger companies,
including acquirers or consolidators of open source software and the
corporate users of that software, who need to undertake due diligence. For
them, reading and understanding open source licenses isn't rocket science;
it is merely a cost of doing software business. These companies already pay
for lawyers to advise them, as they should. :-)

/Larry



> -----Original Message-----
> From: license-discuss-bounces at opensource.org [mailto:license-discuss-
> bounces at opensource.org] On Behalf Of Chad Perrin
> Sent: Friday, March 02, 2012 9:46 AM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0
> from OSI process
> 
> On Thu, Mar 01, 2012 at 09:44:17PM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> >
> > About the worst thing engineers can do is attempt to make legal
> > determinations without proper counsel and the necessary training.
> > They invariably get it wrong and they can be made to look really
> > stupid in court by a competent expert witness.
> 
> This could turn out to be a huge problem for any independent open
> source
> software developer who is not wealthy.  The only really safe approach
> to
> open source software development, given the above, would be "Don't."
> 
> --
> Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
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