[License-discuss] Retroactively disapproving licenses

[Lawrence Rosen]

Brad Kuhn wrote in his long and opinionated email:

>>>> I've been suggesting that the OSI should have a dis-approval or 

>>>> delisting process, capable of being initiated by someone other than 

>>>> the license steward, for a long time, but the OSI has been pretty 

>>>> resistant to this idea.

 

> Was this put to an actual OSI Board vote when you were on the Board?

 

Richard Fontana replied:

No board vote, but it's been informally discussed (probably mainly on this list) several times in the past. Actually I believe the OSI today may be more receptive to the idea.

 

I confess to being angry that some people on here assert authority over other lawyers’ work. You don’t have to like or use my licenses, but you can’t just dismiss them. Please be more humble. 

 

Brad has the illusion that his opinions about licenses (and currently about jurisdictional clauses in licenses) qualifies him to disapprove existing and already-approved licenses. Nothing in OSI’s procedures grants him or the current OSI board authority to do that. I honor the fact that he has been involved in OSI licensing issues for at least as long as I have been, and he can speak up all he wants claiming that his opinions are valid. But he is no authority. He is no expert on the legal issues of licenses in the US and other countries. He certainly is not a lawyer whose opinions matter over those of actual lawyers in some magical way. Any court would say so and shut him up.

 

For what my own limited opinion is worth, I certainly do not delegate to him, nor to the OSI board of directors, the right to retroactively disapprove my own licenses along with my own carefully-considered jurisdictional provisions. And I readily admit, I do not profess to be an authority on German or French licenses capable to telling them to change their provisions. Brad and the OSI have ONLY the authority to determine whether licenses satisfy the Open Source Definition AND NOTHING MORE.

 

/Larry

 

Lawrence Rosen

707-478-8932

3001 King Ranch Rd., Ukiah, CA 95482

 

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