[License-review] License drafting quality and process [was Re: Comment on MOSL and similar licenses]

[Carlo Piana]

Josh Berkus <josh at postgresql.org> wrote:

>Luis, All:
>
>Personally, I don't have a problem with making legal review a de facto
>requirement of submitting a new license.  It's a good threshold of
>seriousness for developers wanting to craft their own licenses.  While
>the goals of not imposing financial barriers to licensing are all nice
>and public-minded, every single license I've seen submitted to this
>list
>without prior legal help over the last 2 years was a complete waste of
>time, for both us and the submitter.
>
>For the sufficiently determined, there are multiple ways to get legal
>help without paying for it personally.  SFLC, SPI, pro-bono help,
>corporate sponsors, Kickstarter, etc.  The insufficiently determined
>aren't going to their their license through regardless.
>
>Or to put it another way: do we *really* want people creating new
>licenses who don't have the organization to raise $1000 to pay an
>attorney?  Seems like a recipe for lots of poorl-conceived orphan
>licenses, if you ask me.
>
>Now, in the best of all possible worlds, OSI would have some way to
>provide legal review assistance.  Failing that, we could simply provide
>a referral page, where attorneys and organizations who did this sort of
>thing could list themselves.
>
>--Josh Berkus
>______________

Josh,

I like your reasoning, makes a lot of sense.

Carlo