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<TITLE>RE: To the keepers of the holy grail of Open Source</TITLE>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>Hi Larry,</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Here some ideas and suggestions:</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>- If someone send s mail to license-approval, just acknowledge the mail, say it might take 6 months and that they should evaluate using the xxxx license in the meantime. This sets expectations and buys you time.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>- If you are swamped with license requests, I think that the only way put is to create a "standard license" with just replacing the name and a few options to either select or not select (I guess mainly in the area of what to do when re-distributing). I "cleaned up" our license suggestion and it might be a starting base. The main difference to many other licenses are: commercial use, require 3rd party license. Gone are the restrictions criticized before. Links: <A HREF="http://www.compiere.org/license.html" TARGET="_blank">http://www.compiere.org/license.html</A> and the "as much pure ASCII as a MS Windows system allows" version <A HREF="http://www.compiere.org/license.txt" TARGET="_blank">http://www.compiere.org/license.txt</A> . It would actually be nice to make it more readable for non-lawyers, but would need feedback for that.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>- If you have a standard license, than I would definitely charge for the approval. IBM, Netscape, Apple, Sun, etc. will pay. Use a revenue scaled fee, maybe starting at $1000(Whatever a hired lawyer would charge)</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>- What you want to do (I assume) is help the "hacker" to have a license to protect him/her - and that should be for free. All the others using Open Source as a publicity or marketing tool should pay by their ability.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>- This would give you time to help the hacker, concentrate on new areas and make the others pay for what they are looking for.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>- I subscribed to the license-discuss for a while before sending my last mail ... and I read more or less all licenses published on your site. You are probably aware, that most companies use the open source initiative as a publicity tool "hey we are the good guys" - same as "open system" movement a few years back.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>- Consequently, I really think you guys need to change your emphasis from approving Licenses to coming up with a "Good Open Source Seal" or something like that. I am in this industry for more than 20 years starting as a hacker to senior management and back to hacker (because management stinks). When I started, I thought that my source is the most valuable I have. I realized, that giving it away does not harm you at all, it gives the recipient just a good feeling. Even if a "bad" person takes it and does something you would not like, the damage is minimal.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>- The main difference between commercial software and Open Source is not that you can get the source, but that you can legally use it without paying. How many people are capable changing code of Apache? But on the other hand, how many people use a MS Word license for more than one person/pc - or "forgot" to count a few users/CPUs/MHz/etc. for their Oracle or other server licenses?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>- I think that you need to try to protect the (sill good) Open Source name - Or it will simply end up as slapping your source on the web, offer implementation and support (the only way to get it working) and sail under the Open Source "the good guy" banner. With the ASP model becoming more and more attractive, the support fee just includes the prorated license fee. I just paid my yearly Borland JDeveloper support fee (which is just upgrades) for $2400 - a new license is $2900 - effectively you are paying $500 for the "free" implementation support after the initial purchase.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>AGAIN: - Concentrate on the IMPORTANT parts - and License issues are not the most important part for the Open Source movement .... well ... after approving mine ;-)</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>The license can only be a part.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>- Suggestion for the "Good Open Source Citizen Seal" administration process:</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>a) The person(s) interested fill out a form and "sign" it</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>b) You believe them and they get the seal</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>c) The seal is just a graph linking to a site where you list the "nice guys"</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>d) On the "nice guys" page are the criteria listed and a link to a form which can be filled out if someone thinks that they don't follow the principles by letter or spirit</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>e) If you get an email, you ask the seal owner for comment/change and decide</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>f) If required, seal is revoked and the page link put to a "bad guys" list</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>.... and I would even volunteer to set up the process and maintain these pages.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>P.S.: Sorry about sending messages in something other than "base ASCII".</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>Cheers,</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Jorg Janke (203) 445-8182</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>www.accorto.com Smart Business Management Solutions</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>www.compiere.org Open Source ERP</FONT>
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<BR>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>-----Original Message-----</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>From: Lawrence E. Rosen [<A HREF="mailto:lrosen@rosenlaw.com">mailto:lrosen@rosenlaw.com</A>]</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Sent: Friday, January 19, 2001 02:13 PM</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>To: Jorg Janke; license-discuss@opensource.org</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Subject: RE: To the keepers of the holy grail of Open Source</FONT>
</P>
<BR>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>I am answering an email that was posted to license-discuss. It raised</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>several concerns that are widely shared.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>I am writing both to apologize about the long delay in responding to your</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>(and many other) licenses, and to ask your patience. The board of directors</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>of OSI is a volunteer group. They have limited time to review and approve</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>licenses. They have been overwhelmed by the very large number of licenses</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>that were submitted in the past six months or so, and have simply been</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>unable to keep up. This problem will be a major topic for discussion at the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>OSI board meeting later this month.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Believe me, we share your frustration.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>The board has chosen to "cherry-pick" a few licenses for review and</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>approval. In doing so, we have tried to consider which licenses will have</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>the "biggest bang for the buck" in terms of advancing the cause. That has</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>perhaps resulted in more attention paid to the license proposals of big</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>companies and less attention paid to the smaller ones. This form of triage</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>doesn't make anyone happy, but we haven't had much choice. Even as it is,</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>we have only been able to approve a few licenses in recent months.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>I was interested to hear your suggestion that perhaps submitters would be</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>willing to pay for license review. How much would you be willing to pay?</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>This might make it possible for OSI to hire professional attorneys to review</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>licenses more rapidly.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>We also intend to create "ready to use" templates based upon</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>already-approved licenses. Once again, it is the lack of resources and $$$$</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>that is slowing us down. OSI is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. Your</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>contributions to OSI are tax deductible. You can help significantly by</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>contributing money to OSI.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>As for "guidelines for non-lawyers," we'll try to do what we can within the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>constraints that we cannot and should not give generic legal advice. We</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>will, however, try to write license comparisons so that you can understand</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>some of the differences among the key open source licenses.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>You also asked about trademarks. Unfortunately, the term "Open Source" has</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>become so widely used, in so many contexts and with so many subtle meanings,</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>that it is useless as a trademark. OSI has chosen to proceed with its own</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>certification mark (OSI Certified open source software) which can be applied</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>to any software that is distributed under an OSI-approved license. This</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>certification mark is described more fully on the OSI website.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>/Larry Rosen</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Executive Director, OSI</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>650-216-1597</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>lrosen@rosenlaw.com</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>www.opensource.org</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>************************************************</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>YOU WROTE:</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>- I am a bit frustrated about the process; I had to submit our suggestion</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>three times before receiving the first feedback.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>- If you only want to deal with the Fortune 1000 - please say so.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>- The current "ready to use" licenses available are inconsistent and there</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>is no guideline when to use what</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>- If you want to take the Open Source License seriously, but don't want to</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>deal with the "little guys", I suggest you come up with some templates - or</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>do something like eTrust</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="http://www.etrust.com/webpublishers/pub_resourceguide.html" TARGET="_blank">http://www.etrust.com/webpublishers/pub_resourceguide.html</A></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>- I don't think that people would mind the alternative: use one of the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>following templates or pay a fee for us looking at the license - assuming</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>that there are templates available and some guideline for non-lawyers when</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>to use which.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>c) Open Source Trademark</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>--------------------------------------------</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>- As you know, the 'characteristics' of Open Source projects are very</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>different. Recently, there are quite a few companies using the Open Source</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>as marketing tool (in addition to the failed commercial projects)</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>- I think, you guys need to come up with some guidelines on 'ethical' Open</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Source projects. I realize that there is a fine line ... and Tim O'Reilly</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>would not support an Open Book Source project similar to the original</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Napster.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>- I suggest that you come up with some guidelines (and even approval</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>process) to separate the "good" from the "others".</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>- Some of the major points, I see:</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2> - Does it need to compile (out of the box in defined environment) ?</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2> - Does it need to be installable (out of the box in defined</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>environment) ?</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2> - Can it rely on or requite products only commercially available ?</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2> - Can you charge a download fee ?</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2> - Would you be able to use the product without paid support ?</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>- To test your criteria, you should have a look at www.opensales.org - try</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>to install it, try to do something with it (you can't get support from</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>www.opensales.com if you have not paid for the estimated $100,000</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>implementation project)</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>- Another test criteria would be Compiere. Our intension is to make Compiere</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>THE ERP system for the little guy with 50% market share - by giving it away</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>and offering support for the not so technically/functionally inclined. But,</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>our credo is, that it has to work out-of-the-box without limitations or</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>outside help - Our targeted guarantee: "up and running 2 hours after</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>download or shame on us". We see the main acceptance in third world</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>countries (who would not be able to pay anyway) resulting in an active user</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>and developer community.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Cheers,</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Jorg Janke</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>www.accorto.com Smart Business Management Solutions</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>www.compiere.org Open Source ERP for the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Small-Medium-Enterprise</FONT>
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