License Committee Report for September 2009

[Bruce Perens]

Isn't that ironic. I hope I shall soon be able to show you my expert 
report in the second appeal of Jacobsen v. Katzer, which would not have 
been necessary at all had Bob chosen a better license back then. Please 
take my word that the license was, and continues to be, a problem.

    Thanks

    Bruce

John Cowan wrote:
> Bruce Perens scripsit:
>   
>> This could be an example of the problem of non-attorney-written licenses 
>> which do even their own authors a disservice because they don't work as 
>> expected in court. I submit that for OSI to approve a license, there 
>> should be an attorney willing to stand up for it and either explain why 
>> its terms or necessary or repair them. OSI, IMO, currently does 
>> developers a disservice by accepting (and thus, placing its imprimatur 
>> upon) licenses which are legal trash.
>>     
>
> And then there's the Artistic License 1.0, the most trashy license we have,
> and the only one beside the GPL that _has_ stood up in court.
>
>