[License-review] Non-binding straw poll: Do you think CC0 should be approved?

[Karl Fogel]

Thanks for that succint -1 explanation, Bruce.

I forgot to mention one thing in my original mail:

Everyone, please do NOT use this thread as a place for further
discussion of particular points. This poll is for data collection, not
discussion.  If you wish to respond to points someone makes in their
-1, then follow up using a *different* subject line, so as to start a
new thread for that sub-discussion.

I do not want to have to wade through another zillion exchanges just
to get the results of the poll.  Please help my mailreader help me
:-).

Thank you,
-Karl

On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 12:30 AM, Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com> wrote:
> -1
>
> From CC's own admission, the dedication and fallback license are not
> primarily intended for software, but for scientific data.
> Again by their own admission, the intent was to exclude a patent grant. This
> is of course the wrong answer for software.
> It would be simple enough for us to construct a version of the document
> without the problem. We have sufficient counsel available.
> So, the only reason to approve the version with the problem is that it comes
> from CC, and that we feel it's important to support CC even when the result
> isn't that good for software. If this is the case, we would be approving the
> document for political reasons rather than because it's a good document for
> software developers to use.
>
> Under the CC document, a party that has licensed a patent and dedicates the
> software exercising that patent is obligated to help the licensee of the
> patent to prosecute the party using the software.
> Why would we want to put our own developers in that trap?
> If OSI approves the document, naive programmers will use it, relying on
> OSI's imprimateur with no awareness of its problems.
>
>     Thanks
>
>     Bruce