<div dir="ltr">McCoy, you aren't really talking about the decision process at all. This list is advisory. The OSI board votes, and we receive no tally naming directors and their votes yay or nay, nor their rationale for voting as they did. This makes it difficult for us to determine how we should vote for OSI directors, since we have no idea how they actually vote in office, or whether they actually read license-review at all. Some seem to, but they almost all lurk 100% of the time and we have no idea how they actually feel.<div><br></div><div>The OSI board is under no compulsion to listen to me or anyone else who doesn't have a vote on the board.<div><br></div><div> Thanks</div><div><br></div><div> Bruce</div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 11:58 AM Smith, McCoy <<a href="mailto:mccoy.smith@intel.com" target="_blank">mccoy.smith@intel.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><a name="m_-1016984961438737328_m_-8069868652175422834______replyseparator"></a><b><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">>>From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> License-discuss [mailto:<a href="mailto:license-discuss-bounces@lists.opensource.org" target="_blank">license-discuss-bounces@lists.opensource.org</a>]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Luis Villa<br>
<b>>>Sent:</b> Friday, March 15, 2019 10:13 AM<br>
<b>>>To:</b> <a href="mailto:license-discuss@lists.opensource.org" target="_blank">license-discuss@lists.opensource.org</a><br>
<b>>>Subject:</b> [License-discuss] discussion of L-R process [was Re: [License-review] Approval: Server Side Public License, Version 2 (SSPL v2)]<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">>></span>This is a spitball proposal, so feel free to propose something more constructive, but I'd suggest standing up an OSI Discourse instance, and moving future discussions there. In particular, I'd suggest
use of Discourse's more wiki-ish features to <span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">>></span>establish standing lists of known issues with a particular draft, easy tracking of initial (and updated) rationales for the license, and probably other things I'm not thinking
of. <span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">I’m with you that the mailing list is a non-optimal tool for conducting the process. Trying to search it, or try to follow which of the many subthreads may contain
a particularly salient or interesting comments, is quite difficult, and extracting historical information is no small feat (although David Kappos’ article indicates that it can be done).<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">>></span>This is not exactly a new idea; someone told me at OSLS that "even bugzilla would be better" than a mailing list, and I believe I've suggested GitHub here in the past. But I think the recent discussions,
which have turned off many people, <span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">>></span>suggest OSI badly needs to step back and rethink not just "the process" but the underlying tool.<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">It seems to me that the main criticisms being lodged are not with the tools by which the process is administered, but the process itself. They seem to boil down
(to my best understanding) to the following three complaints:<br>
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<p class="gmail-m_-1016984961438737328gmail-m_-8069868652175422834MsoListParagraph"><u></u><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><span>1.<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">A few loud voices have undue influence on how ultimate decisions are made [as a regular poster, that may include me].<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="gmail-m_-1016984961438737328gmail-m_-8069868652175422834MsoListParagraph"><u></u><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><span>2.<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">There is not enough variety of voices are being heard, or there is a “silent majority” whose opinions are not reflected in the eventual decisions being
made or the discussions on the mailing list.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="gmail-m_-1016984961438737328gmail-m_-8069868652175422834MsoListParagraph"><u></u><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><span>3.<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">There is a lack of clarity as to how the process of taking mailing list input and turning it into board decision output occurs.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">As to those three, I’d respond:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">1. Other than some form of moderation (which I’m not sure there is a need for), I’m not sure how you modulate perceived loud voices. In fact, I would argue
that the louder you are, the more you run the risk of being perceived as unpersuasive (like the old lawyer adage: “when the law favors you, pound the law; when the facts favor you, pound the facts; when neither the law nor the facts favor you, pound the table.”)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">2. I talk about open source licensing with some frequency, and almost always suggest that people should pay more attention to, and chime in if appropriate, this
process. Infinite eyes make all license bugs shallow and such. How one accounts for the opinions of a “silent majority” I have no idea, other than having some sort of anonymous voting mechanism (and would such a mechanism be restricted to OSI members – like
board elections – or would it be open to anyone caring to vote?)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">3. I think Richard Fontana has provided some explanation as to how the decision process works – community input is gathered through the mailing list over a
period of time, and then the board meets to vote when the input is clear and complete, and makes a decision. If there is a better system (other than anonymous voting of everyone willing to vote), I haven’t really seen a proposal or have one in mind. And
it seems that at least the board elections (which close today) is one mechanism where people can potentially have input to how decisions are made in the current process. Having a “more licenses should be approved,” “we need licenses to address new business
models” or “I will represent the silent majority” candidate might serve to address the perception issue that not all issues or concerns are being fully addressed.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">I also think it would interesting to compare whether decision-making on license approval is substantially different than the way in which decision-making is done
for code contributions to large open source projects with maintainers (or subsystem maintainers).<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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