[License-discuss] FAQ suggestion

[Richard Fontana]

On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 21:46:50 -0800
Luis Villa <luis at lu.is> wrote:

> Karl, Richard, anyone else: any thoughts on this?

It seems a useful addition. I would suggest the following changes:

Use initial caps for 'open source definition'. 

Change 'perpetual and irrevocable' to 'perpetual'.

The draft entry ignores the fact that there are some licenses that have
been approved by the OSI but considered nonconformant to the FSD by the
FSD, but that may not be an important detail to emphasize here.

- Richard






> 
> 
> On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Luis Villa <luis at lu.is> wrote:
> 
> > That seems like a reasonable addition to me, and addresses real,
> > recent confusion.
> >
> > Karl and Richard are on planes today, and I would like to hear their
> > thoughts before taking it live, though.
> >
> > Thanks, Engel!
> > Luis
> > On Nov 10, 2013 10:38 AM, "Engel Nyst" <engel.nyst at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hello license-discuss,
> >>
> >> I would propose an additional paragraph to the FAQ, for the
> >> question What is "free software" and is it the same as "open
> >> source"?
> >>
> >> The text currently says:
> >> > One of the tactical concerns most often cited by adopters of the
> >> > term "open source" was the ambiguity of the English word "free",
> >> > which can refer either to freedom or to mere monetary price;
> >> > this ambiguity was also given by the OSI founders as a reason to
> >> > prefer the new term (see "What Does `free' Mean, Anyway?", and
> >> > similar language on the marketing for hackers page, both from
> >> > the original 1998 web site).
> >>
> >> At this point in the text, I'd suggest to insert a little
> >> explanation on the ambiguity in the use of the term of open source
> >> as well. Quick draft...
> >>
> >> > On the other hand, the term "open" applied to the source is
> >> > sometimes used in the sense of merely "provided" or "visible",
> >> > but the open source definition sets the criteria for "open
> >> > source" to software licenses that guarantee a set of perpetual
> >> > and irrevocable rights to every recipient.
> >>
> >> The text should then probably skip "furthermore", and continue...
> >>
> >> > The FSF uses a shorter, four-point definition of software freedom
> >> > when evaluating licenses, while the OSI uses a longer, ten-point
> >> > definition. The two definitions lead to the same result in
> >> > practice, but use superficially different language to get there.
> >>
> >> I hope it will help with a number of misunderstandings.
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> >>
> >