Approval of IWL - Consolidated Response

[Gernot Heiser]

Sorry, I've been snowed under for the last couple weeks. Returning to
this now.

What we've got in the meantime is:

>>>>> On Thu, 29 May 2008 16:20:30 +0200, Matthew Flaschen <matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu> said:
MF> Gernot Heiser wrote:
>> Folks,
>> 
>> Please excuse me for sounding naive, but this whole process has
>> totally lost me, and I'm looking for some explanation on how it's
>> supposed to work.
>> 
>> We really tried to do the right thing. We looked for an OSI-approved
>> license to match our requirements, and the closest we could find was
>> the SleepyCat license, which is not re-usable.

MF> All of the licenses are in fact reusable, though some are not yet
MF> templatized.

This statement created a fair bit of discussion. I think it's fair
enough to state that there is no agreement that this is in fact the
case. As such I have to assume that it is not.

>> So we applied minimal changes (plus some clarifications) to make it
>> re-usable.

MF> Your "clarifications" change the meaning of the license, and can not be
MF> considered minimal.

I didn't say they are "irrelevant" (which they aren't) but they are
certainly. Specifically they try to provide better clarity. Maybe
that's good, maybe it's bad. It isn't the main issue as far as I
understand it. The main one is this:

>> It seems to me that arguments are boiling down to OSD compliance not
>> being sufficient.

MF> On the contrary.  OSD compliance is key, and as I said, your license
MF> violates OSD #9.

Ok, I'm happy to hear that OSD compliance is key.

So it's down to an alleged violation of OSD #9. We have asked for that
to be clarified, but I haven't seen anyone clearly enunciate how the
IWL violates OSD #9.

I'd really appreciate some clarity on this.

Thanks,
Gernot