[License-review] [CAVO] Submission of OSET Public License for Approval

Juan E. Gilbert juan at ufl.edu
Sun Sep 6 17:39:44 UTC 2015


I suspect these conversations will get very interesting when we release 
Prime III as open source under GPLv3. We are planning a release on 
September 28th. Once we have proven release that has been and will be 
used in binding elections, I suspect these debates will intensify. Keep 
in mind, Prime III runs local, i.e. no network connection required, 
through your web broswer and doesn't store any information about voters. 
Hence, no one has hacked it or claimed they can hack it because it 
prints a paper ballot that is actually the ballot of record, not a 
digital ballot.

Stay tuned...


On 9/6/15 1:01 PM, Brent Turner wrote:
> One concern is this newly  licensed code becoming corporate owned 
> code, and that possible " back-door"  issue may diminish the 
> enthusiasm of the coders  work toward best election system efforts. 
> Though this might not be a point of irritation for academics, the 
> election system open source and security community has noted this and 
> is curious what is compelling OSET to avoid  GPLv3 ..   Will the code 
> eventually go to Kapor's friends at Apple ?
>
> Kapor's noted involvement is only as relevant as his close ties with 
> Apple and other commercial entities that may be the benefactors here. 
> In the space of elections and vote counting, we have witnessed much 
> sleight of hand, so applications that avoid GPLv3 for voting system 
> use raises eyebrows, as does OSETS previous political actions.
>
> CAVO considers all the humans to be " stakeholders" here.  and does 
> not anticipate "special" harm.
>
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 6, 2015 at 7:36 AM, Richard Fontana 
> <fontana at sharpeleven.org <mailto:fontana at sharpeleven.org>> wrote:
>
>
>     How would CAVO, or the open source voting systems space generally, be
>     harmed if this license were approved? (How is it any different than if
>     the OSET Foundation decided to use an existing non-GPLv3 OSI-approved
>     license, such as MPL 2.0 ... or even "GPLv2 only"?)
>
>     I think the politics lurking behind these license submissions are
>     worth bringing to light and examining (something which hasn't been
>     done enough in the past, IMO) but all I'm seeing here so far is
>     general concern about the OSET Foundation's close connection to the
>     wealthy Mr. Kapor.
>
>
>     On Fri, Sep 04, 2015 at 07:50:14PM -0700, Brent Turner wrote:
>     > Maybe there are answers in the sidebar- - What compels someone
>     like Mitch Kapor
>     > to create a new license for election systems ?  What compels him
>     to be in the
>     > space of "open source "  voting systems to begin with ?  
>     Certainly we assume
>     > he has more than  enough money but is it just greed for more ? 
>     Is it the power
>     > that comes with pioneering a new license so that he can be the "
>     kingpin " of
>     > voting ?  This is the concern of the open source voting pioneer
>     community. OSET
>     > has consistently ignored. the open source community and now this
>     new license
>     > issue is upon us.  Why would we need a new license rather than
>     use GPLv3 ? .
>     >
>     > On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 4:51 PM, Lawrence Rosen
>     <lrosen at rosenlaw.com <mailto:lrosen at rosenlaw.com>> wrote:
>     >
>     >
>     >     There is nobody more qualified than Heather Meeker to
>     shepherd the creation
>     >     of a new open source license. She's an expert.
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >     Intelligent and serious consideration went into the OSET
>     Public License
>     >     (OPL). After a detailed review by this OSI license-review@
>     committee and
>     >     perhaps some slight modifications by its authors, this
>     license will almost
>     >     certainly be approved.
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >     What concerns me still, though, is how this new license will
>     be absorbed by
>     >     the open source community and by election officials around
>     the world.
>     >     Heather correctly criticized me earlier for arguing that
>     this new license
>     >     is addressing "a non-existent problem." Actually, it is
>     mostly adding to an
>     >     existing difficult problem.
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >     David Webber here accurately described "an open source
>     solution stack for a
>     >     typical voting solution today [that[ includes a whole raft
>     of licenses."
>     >     Any government agency that intends to acquire an open source
>     election
>     >     system will inevitably require components such as an
>     operating system,
>     >     database, printer and scanner drivers, and a main voting
>     software module,
>     >     presumably under a cornucopia of licenses including Apache,
>     MPL, ECL, GPL,
>     >     and a whole lot of BSD. We expect FOSS and commercial
>     add-ons that
>     >     aggregate with that election stuff.
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >     Add to this one more open source license.
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >     We'll also have to wait for all the potentially interested
>     developer
>     >     foundations and commercial distributors and customers to
>     understand if the
>     >     new license is compatible with what they are already doing –
>     specifically
>     >     for derivative works.
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >     Does anyone here believe that a new open source license will
>     cure the
>     >     existing confusion among government agencies that already
>     engage in FOSS
>     >     licensing?
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >     As for me, I'm personally rather bored with evaluating (yet
>     another) open
>     >     source license, so I leave the rest of that fun discussion
>     to everyone
>     >     else. :-)
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >     Have a great holiday weekend!
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >     /Larry
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
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-- 
Juan E. Gilbert, Ph.D.
Andrew Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Professor & Chair
Computer & Information Science & Engineering Department
University of Florida
P.O. Box 116120
Gainesville, FL 32611
352.562.0784 (V)
352.392.1220 (F)
juan at ufl.edu
Twitter: @DrJuanGilbert
http://www.juangilbert.com/

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