[License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Resources to discourage governments from bespoke licenses?

Nigel T nigel.2048 at gmail.com
Sat Feb 29 17:15:34 UTC 2020


Sorry, yes 2.0.  It’s been so long I’d forgotten.

The most relevant post is this one:

https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2013-October/001999.html

October 2013.  List moderator sends to the board a recommendation to approve.  

No vote taken.  New list moderator squashes it.

Fontana goes on to claim that NOSA 1.3 isn’t an open source license and in following discussions claimed that proliferation was an issue.  For a new license that would replace and old one.

Given that outlandish claim (that NOSA 1.3 wasn’t open source), that he has NEVER justified, my only concern in 2020 is that he doesn’t try to “fix” that if the OSI adopts a decertification process.

Also looking at the meeting minutes there appears to be no vote and the final action item was:

Richard to follow up on License-Review and FSF with OSI's current interpretation and open issues.

As far as I can tell that never happened. Instead NOSA 2.0 was characterized as declined.  The board didn’t have the decency to actually vote to reject and put that on record...ostensibly to spare NASA embarrassment of a rejection.  Lol.  Right. 

Bruce joined the bandwagon in 2016 or 2017 which is how it could be characterized as the list was against approval.  The only one left that cared was me because it was three years after the license submission.

I will stop here before using some “intemperate language”.

But I’ll leave you with this: if Fontana had been a nobody like me do you really think that NOSA wouldn’t have passed in 2013?

Or do you think someone in a position of power ignored the community recommendation and list guidelines for YEARS until he got the outcome he wanted because he could?

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 28, 2020, at 6:02 PM, McCoy Smith <mccoy at lexpan.law> wrote:
> 
> 
>> 
>>> From: Nigel T <nigel.2048 at gmail.com> 
>>> Sent: Friday, February 28, 2020 2:20 PM
>>> To: license-discuss at lists.opensource.org
>>> Cc: mccoy at lexpan.law; Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY CCDC ARL (USA) <cem.f.karan.civ at mail.mil>
>>> Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Resources to discourage governments from bespoke licenses?
> 
>>> The argument that the NASA lawyer wasn’t participating is particularly annoying since he WAS participating until Fontana decided to sit on the license for years AFTER the prior list moderator had sent a recommendation from the list for the board to approve.
> 
> Looks like you're referring to Bryan Guerts (a NASA lawyer), who submitted NOSA 2.0 (not 3.0) on June 13, 2013: https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2013-June/001944.html 
> As far as I can tell, there was sporadic discussion of that license -- which included Bryan -- until it appears to have been rejected in January, 2017: https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2017-January/002933.html
> 
>>> Whatever the merits or lack thereof of NOSA 3.0 it is ridiculous to argue that NASA didn’t put in a good faith effort to answer questions or engage.  
> 
> Do you mean NOSA 2.0?  That seems to be the one of contention, and I don't think I've ever seen a 3.0 submitted.
> 
>>> Then a board member said nah, I’m not even going to let it go for a vote.  I’m just going to sit on it for years until I can say the list recommends not to approve because the only three people left talking about it is some nobody, Richard and Bruce so the “majority” of the list is “against” and the license submitter has stopped responding.
> 
> The committee report in Jan 2017 doesn't list who voted, or what the vote was (they now at least indicate the vote), so I'm not sure how you conclude this.  I don't see that Bruce Perens was involved in any of the discussions, nor does it appear he was part of the vote in Jan 2017: https://opensource.org/minutes20170111 .
> 
>>> I’m sure I’m going to be accused of “relitigating a dead issue” but so long as the OSI doesn’t “decertify” NOSA 2.0 I don’t care anymore.  
> 
> NASA 1.3 you mean?  That's the OSI-approved one:  https://opensource.org/licenses/NASA-1.3
> 
> 
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