[License-review] CC0 incompliant with OSD on patents, [was: MXM compared to CC0 ]

[Karl Fogel]

Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> writes:
>Fair enough.  For immediate context, please realise that I've known
>Bruce socially for a long time, and hoped my comment would be received
>as a gentle chiding over abandonment of perspective by someone he knows.
>
>No interpersonal unpleasantness was (in that case) intended, or, I hope,
>perceived.  (And I do appreciate your speaking up.)

Ah, thanks -- knowing that context helps.

One of the things that's tricky on these lists, I think, is that two
interlocutors may know each other personally, but *that fact* may be
unknown to others on the list (as it was to me, for example)... Which
means that gentle-but-public chiding between old acquaintances can cause
others to think that that kind chiding is appropriate between strangers,
thus unintentionally contributing to a general anything-goes atmosphere.

The solution, I think, is not to talk to everyone as though they're a
stranger, but just to make sure that the context is clear when you're
addressing someone familiarly -- so that observers know that's what's
going on.

(And I realize this is a lot of meta-conversation here, but I think it's
needed to avoid other threads getting as heated as CC0 got.)

-K