[License-discuss] OSI definition

Pamela Chestek pamela.chestek at opensource.org
Mon Feb 1 00:36:41 UTC 2021


I believe this line of discussion, whether or not corporations are 
people, has been exhausted and no minds are going to be changed. I 
suggest it's time to end it.

Pam

Pamela Chestek
Chair, License Committee
Open Source Initiative

On 1/26/2021 11:24 AM, Mat K. Witts wrote:
>> This thread consists of the list offering consensus that your license fails the OSD and you replying “nope, you guys are all wrong”
> That a good description, yes, and yet replies like this one don't fit that description, so that may need further explanation. Many of my replies involve me agreeing with the objective factual content of a post - for example 'the OSD says this' but I do tend to disagree with many of the subjective assumptions and interpretations people are making especially when there is no evidence to support those assumptions and interpretations.
>
>> you don’t get to define what the OSD says or even what OSI’s historical interpretation of the OSD...aka the spirit of the law.
> True. But then again I am not motivated to do that though so that's fine.
>
>> And you also don’t get to define who are people...
> That's right. I leave that up to scientists, not random people on internet mailing lists. I suggest we all do that and see how the concept of 'corporation' fits a scientific understanding of what a human being is, not a legal one if we ant to get past the idea that a corporation has feelings too.
>
>> [corporations] have some of the same constitutional protection as natural people
> Yes. So...? Are you implying a corporation can sue someone for discrimination? Are you serious?
>
>> your license attempts to deliberately exploit an ambiguity in the letter of the OSD that has been understood by the community to mean you don’t get to restrict who gets to use open source, including companies we don’t like, to attempt to violate the spirit of the OSD.
> Like you said: Yeah, no.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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




More information about the License-discuss mailing list