[License-discuss] FAQ entry (and potential website page?) on "why standard licenses"?

[Richard Fontana]

On Mon, 28 Apr 2014 11:42:51 -0400
Ben Cotton <bcotton at fedoraproject.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 11:26 AM, Lawrence Rosen
> <lrosen at rosenlaw.com> wrote:
> > I'm not quarreling with OSI's attempt to get everyone to use
> > approved licenses
> 
> Larry hit on my suggestion. Anywhere the word "standard" is used, some
> variant of "approved" or "OSI-approved" is a reasonable replacement.
 
I might be confused but when Luis speaks of "standard" licenses I
assumed he means a proper subset of the OSI-approved licenses,
perhaps approximately the set of licenses the OSI has labeled
"popular" (something I'm known to have criticized in the past), and I
took Larry's initial response to be based on the same interpretation.

To characterize all of the OSI-approved licenses as being "standard" in
a common-sense sense would really stretch the common-sense meaning of
"standard". For an arbitrary example I picked in going down the list of
OSI-approved licenses, to assert that there is something "standard"
about the Attribution Assurance License would be bizarre; I trust no
one would disagree with that. It's a *nonstandard* license. The fact
that it was approved by the OSI is very important but it does not
transform the Attribution Assurance License into something that is
"standard" in a common-sense sense.

As to whether it is appropriate to liken OSI to a standards group, that
seems to be an orthogonal issue -- it's a different use of the word
"standard" from the use I believe Luis is employing.


 - Richard