[License-review] OSI, legal conditions outside the "four corners" of the license, and PD/CC 0 [was Re: Can OSI specify that public domain is open source?]

[John Cowan]

Bruce Perens scripsit:

> We can't expect everyone to respond at all, and IMO it's within OSI's  
> purview to say, clearly, that something is /not /an Open Source license  
> and thus inform their community that it's not acceptable. This doesn't  
> have to be the same process as reviewing a license for acceptance.

However, OSI has never done so, and I hope never will.  (FSF does, and I
have no problem with that; they are not seen as a neutral organization,
and OSI is.)  

Currently OSI takes only three kinds of actions: it approves licenses,
it approves legacy licenses, and it takes note that a license has been
withdrawn.  Adding a fourth activity seems to me a bad idea.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org  http://ccil.org/~cowan
The penguin geeks is happy / As under the waves they lark
The closed-source geeks ain't happy / They sad cause they in the dark
But geeks in the dark is lucky / They in for a worser treat
One day when the Borg go belly-up / Guess who wind up on the street.