License Committee Report for September 2009

[Giancarlo Niccolai]

Russ Nelson wrote:
> I'm the chair of the license approval committee.  This is my report
> for the current set of licenses under discussion.  The OSI board will
> be meeting September 2nd.
>   
<rip>
>
> Title: Falcon Programming Language License
> Submission: 
>   http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?17:mss:826:naokadpjdjicihdgloog
> License: http://www.falconpl.org/index.ftd?page_id=license_1_1
> Comments: Clearly OSD-compatible but ... it's the GPL with an added
>   freedom to embed the language interpreter creating a single work
>   without invoking the terms of the GPL.  If that were it, then we
>   could leave it there, but Giancarlo adds required attribution above
>   and beyond that required by the GPL.
> Recommend: discussion has been insufficient to justify approval at
>   this time.
>   
The "added freedom" is essential to the business model of an open source
embeddable engine (exp. embeddable scripting engine). In the rationale I
sent with the submission I explained why I thought it is preferable to
stop the "custom license / GPL, but with my own uncontrolled/uncertified
exception" rage, and to offer a standardized license covering this
general need.

Could you please clarify the sentence "but Giancarlo adds required
attribution above and beyond that required by the GPL" ?

Finally; please notice that I proposed  to amend it as the committee
suggests. This includes renaming it. We don't have a foundation ATM,
even if we plan to have it, so I would agree with the idea that "(The) 
Falcon (Programming Language) License" doesn't suggest that the license 
is general and meant to target a generic software (with determined 
characteristics, of course) to the casual reader searching for a 
suitable license.

Bests,
Giancarlo Niccolai.