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OSI should deny certification of this license for the reasons
already discussed, and because:<br>
<br>
It is not the product of a legal professional.<br>
<br>
I've been calling these "crayon licenses", taking a line from an old
Monty Python sketch about a dog license with the word "dog" crossed
out and "cat" written in, in crayon.<br>
<br>
Crayon, in this case, is a metaphor for the poor legal qualification
of the authors. Crayon licenses show a lack of understanding of
copyright law, license structure, and most important: what would
happen if the license were to be interpreted in court. We had an
excuse for writing such things in the early days of Open Source when
no lawyer would help us. <i>We no longer have that excuse.</i><br>
<br>
Crayon licenses harm Open Source developers because they don't do
what the developer expects. My most poignant experience with one was
working on the appeal of <i>Jacobsen v. Katzer. </i>Bob Jacobsen,
an innocent Open Source developer, essentially lost his case in the
lower court due to the poor drafting of the Artistic License 1.0,
one of the initial Open Source licenses, when the judge found it to
be tantamount to the public domain. This loss would also have been
very damaging to Open Source in general, had it been allowed to
stand. Bob suffered <i>very</i> significant damage from this case.
We are very fortunate that he persevered, and that we were able to
overturn the decision on appeal.<br>
<br>
OSI should no longer approve crayon licenses, due to the potential
they have to damage our own community.<br>
<br>
Thanks<br>
<br>
Bruce Perens<br>
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