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

[Joel Sherrill]

-1

I normally lurk but this is important.

I very much agree with Bruce. In the RTEMS community, we try to not push any obligations on our users because it makes it too easy for them to unintentionally violate a term. Yes they should read and understand the license but normal FOSS obligations are source redistribution and advertising.  If OSI wants to add another class of obligation as OSI approved, that should be discussed independent of any particular license. 

IMO pushing patent obligations on users is a bad thing.

--joel sherrill
RTEMS

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