On 9/22/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Alexander Terekhov</b> <<a href="mailto:alexander.terekhov@gmail.com">alexander.terekhov@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<div><span class="gmail_quote"></span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On 9/16/07, Chris Travers <<a href="mailto:chris.travers@gmail.com">chris.travers@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> Since the board is still considering this license, I wanted to provide some<br>> information from my research that might help with this decision.
<br>><br>> One of the main issues people have on this list is the idea that other<br>> existing permissive licenses allow sublicensing.<br>><br>> I am not a layer, but I believe that this is wrong as a matter of intent
<br>> licenses such as the BSD-licenses and the that it is also wrong as a matter<br>> of law. In fact, most permissive licenses do not allow for sublicensing and<br>> force the licnese to follow the original copyrightable elements (including
<br>> but not limited to code).</blockquote><div><br>If the sublicensing is not required, then the safe harbour makes them feel permissive. <br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2185919,00.asp">http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2185919,00.asp</a><br>(OSI Calls for Major Revisions to Microsoft Permissive License)</blockquote><div><br>I did not write this headline, and would not have characterized my comments as justifying such a headline. I didn't call for anything, I gave a summary of what I read on license-discuss.
<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">--------<br>The MS-PL is also particularly restrictive, and is "uniquely<br>
incompatible" with the maximum number of other open-source licenses,<br>Tiemann said, noting that in its examination of license proliferation,<br>the OSI had encouraged experimentation with license terms to encourage
<br>new ones to be written that were better than what currently existed.<br><br>"We certainly don't want to presume that we have already invented<br>everything there is to be invented. However, the specific innovation
<br>of maximum incompatibility of the MS-PL is not what we were looking<br>for, so I think what we have is a submission that has two fairly major<br>strikes against it," Tiemann said.<br>--------<br><br>Question to OSI Board of Directors:
<br><br>What is he (Mr. Tiemann) smoking and where can I get some?</blockquote><div><br>I was reading comments from a threat titled ",<span style="font-size: larger;"><b><span id="st" name="st" class="st">License</span>
compatibility of MS-PL and MS-CL (Was: (RE: Groklaw's OSI item (was: When will CPAL actually be _used_?))"</b></span> which included this comment from <span class="q"><b><span style="color: rgb(106, 29, 68);"><font size="3">
Jim
Thatcher</font></span></b><font size="3"><span style="color: black;">, Of
Counsel, <br></span><b><span style="color: rgb(106, 29, 68);">Woodcock Washburn
LLP</span></b></font><span style="color: rgb(106, 29, 68);">:</span></span><br><p><font size="2"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial"><font size="3"><font size="3"><b><i><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">Q7. Then this really isn't a
"<span id="st" name="st" class="st">permissive</span>" <span id="st" name="st" class="st">license</span>, is it?</font></i></b></font></font></font></font></p>
<p><font size="2"><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial"><font size="3"><font size="3"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">A. It's clear from this discussion
that the term "<span id="st" name="st" class="st">permissive</span>" in this context has a specific meaning to many. This
is not really a legal issue, but the business folks at <span id="st" name="st" class="st">Microsoft</span> have heard this
feedback, and will continue to listen to the community to understand the issues
that matter most to developers. <span id="st" name="st" class="st">Microsoft</span> will carefully consider the concerns
that have been raised regarding the title of the
Ms-PL.</font></font></font></font></font></p>
And many other comments from the thread. Again, I didn't call on Microsoft to do anything. I just pointed out what I believed to be a widely held consensus, which is that the name and nature of the Microsoft Permissive License are not yet constructed in a way that makes them a compelling extension of the cadre of OSI-approved licenses. The fact that Microsoft has acknowledged that consensus and is discussing it is a great sign that the license-discuss process is working, not that I'm smoking anything.
<br><br>M<br></div></div><br>