[License-discuss] How can we as a community help empower authors outside license agreements?

[Gil Yehuda]

Tobie

> I believe that to many open source practitioners, the meaning of open
source is much broader than the OSD.

It's even more complicated. The term _open source_ is also used by the
intelligence industry too, and means something very different. Looking for
open source jobs in the greater Washington DC area yields two unrelated
clusters of jobs! All the more reason to ensure we have a clear and
unambiguous definition that we can use when using the term in our more
formal settings.

We all understand that "open source" is more than a license. It's a set of
many facets.[*] But when speaking about licenses, there's value in a clear
OSD.

> Clearly implied there is a broader set of values that are necessary to
meet the spirit of open source than just following the OSD to the letter.

The open source movement has been reluctant to codify all its facets into a
fixed definition. For example: Open Source implies a development
methodology that involves many people from different places working
together. The best projects have that. However the OSD does not require it.
A solo developer can publish an open source project and refuse to accept a
pull request. It misses the spirit and intent, but meets the definition.

Is this a flaw? I'm not sure there's a better alternative. OSD is a floor
for licenses, not a description of the movement. Maybe OSI can clarify this
by having a prosaic description of intent and some of the features of more
successful projects as a distinct document from the OSD. But writing that
is different than changing the OSD.

> ...but most practitioners have never heard of the OSI or the OSD.

This is true and a call for a louder and stronger OSI. I hope OSI gets more
support and encounters less opposition. There are many other important
foundations (Apache, Linux, etc.) in the constellation of non-commercial
neutral entities that help the movement overall. I perceive these groups
work well together. Stable growth and promotion is better than revolution
and the newsworthy kerfuffles.

>... nor do I believe most open source practitioners have heard of the term
"source available." I hadn't until fairly recently.

OK, so maybe this is something worth exploring and socializing. ESM appears
to me to be more similar to Source Available in that both seek to leverage
most of the facets of open source, but employ a restriction of some sort.
Whereas the motivations differ, the modality is similar. It's worth
exploring what those folks have done (and they've done quite a bit in the
past year), that I think there's something to gain from this.

So instead of "let's fight Open Source" or no, now "let's change Open
Source" let me suggest "let's figure out where we best fit in the
collection of open-culture movements."  (which frankly includes more than
open source).

Footnote:
[*] I recently wrote about this in the 3rd of a 4 part blog post here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilyehuda/detail/recent-activity/posts/. I
suggest that over time we evolved from ethos to add concerns related to
license, compliance, development model, economic model, business model,
influence, marketing, community, sustainability, and inclusivity etc. Each
of those are important to consider.

In my training slides I highlight that open source is a legal workaround, a
development methodology, a faith movement, a marketing bullet, a public
collection of code, something to put on your resume, ways to keep busy on
the weekends, and ways for companies to commoditize their competitors, and
for software purchasers to avoid vendor-lock in. It's all that and more.

Gil Yehuda: I help with external technology engagement



On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 12:54 PM Tobie Langel <tobie at unlockopen.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 2:18 PM Jim Jagielski <jim at jimjag.com> wrote:
>
>> > On Mar 18, 2020, at 12:46 PM, Brian Behlendorf <brian at behlendorf.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Any long term community or institution unwilling to occasionally
>> reconsider any of its core principles is one doomed to eventual
>> irrelevance. The U.S. Constitution has been successfully amended 27 times,
>> with the first ten of them (the Bill of Rights) happening only 2 years
>> after, the most recent one ratified in 1992 (203 years after first being
>> proposed! now that must have been an epic thread.)
>> >
>> First of all, I don't think anyone is saying that the OSD is written in
>> stone, sacrosanct, and immune from reconsideration.
>
>
> Frankly, I've seen quite a bit of pushback, but I agree that the
> community is opening up to the idea. There's no process for doing that yet,
> however. It would be great for the OSI to create one.
>
>
>> And yes, the U.S. Constitution has been amended over the years, but most
>> of those are procedural changes and modifications, or clarifications of
>> confusion. A relatively small number of those fundamentally change core
>> principles, and one, which was made almost specifically due to "moral"
>> reasons, was soon overturned (prohibition). So the 2 comparisons are not
>> quite exact.
>>
>
> Sure, a number of amendments were procedural changes and clarifications,
> but let's not forget that there were also amendments which abolished
> slavery, and gave women and people of color the right to vote. I don't
> think we can quite underline that enough, especially given an international
> audience that's not necessarily well versed in American history.
>
> The failure of prohibition actually tells us two things:
>
> (1) that there are a variety of policies that fall under moral or ethical
> labels, some of which are anchored in belief systems that are often
> specific to a community, and others that are grounded in much more
> universal ethical frameworks and stand the test of time, and
> (2) that such policies when ineffective or counterproductive can be
> rescinded, even at the national level.
>
> For me, the biggest issue with ethical open source is that the very fact
>> that such licenses leave certain key questions (and answers) open to
>> interpretation are their basic failings.
>
>
> I agree a 100%.
>
> For software released under such licenses to be usable and gain traction
> in the community (and in particular among businesses), there can't be room
> for interpretation. And that is true regardless of whether or not such
> licenses would get certified by the OSI.
>
> I think we're all well aware that addressing this requires legal acumen
> that few of us have (I certainly don't) and that it is very possible that
> it's not addressable at all.
>
> But I've also seen on multiple occasions that attorneys are just as
> creative and solution-minded as engineers, if not more, so I wouldn't be
> surprised if there were ways to pull this off.
>
> My belief is the OSI should take a leadership position here, in part
> because assisting attorneys to craft open source licenses is one of its
> purpose (as stated in its bylaws) but also because there's a clear and
> strong demand from the community.
>
> And if after a good faith effort to make this happen there's consensus
> that there are no compelling solutions to these legal concerns, it will be
> a lot easier to put the matter to rest, and focus on driving ethical
> concerns through different avenues.
>
> --tobie
> _______________________________________________
> The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not
> necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Official statements by the
> Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address.
>
> License-discuss mailing list
> License-discuss at lists.opensource.org
>
> http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20200319/d768f1a2/attachment-0001.html>