[License-review] resolving ambiguities in OSD [was Re: For Approval: License Zero Reciprocal Public License]

[Luis Villa]

On Tue, Oct 24, 2017 at 4:03 PM Simon Phipps <webmink at opensource.org> wrote:

> Hi Kyle,
>
> On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 12:15 AM, Kyle Mitchell <kyle at kemitchell.com>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> OSI license approval is presented, publicly, as approval of
>> license terms under OSD.
>
>
> ... in the context of OSI's mission. It has never been seperate.
>

But it has never been explicit or clear either. And has led to many, many
rounds of confusion of the type Kyle is running into now; not to mention
many (accurate?) accusations that OSI approval is a political game, not an
actual objective test.

If the board wants to be transparent about the current situation, it should
amend the OSD to add: "11. Whatever OSI's then-current board feels is the
interests of the open source movement." That wouldn't be ideal, but at
least it would be accurate and transparent.

A better approach would be to attempt to capture some of the unwrittten
criteria that the board uses (proliferation, drafting quality, etc.), and
then also add "plus whatever else the board thinks is in the best interests
of the movement, to avoid gaming".

(I say "we" here, because while I raised this concern when I was on the
board (eg 1
<https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2017-January/002957.html>,
2
<https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2013-April/001891.html>,
3
<https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/2012-November/018055.html>,
one other big one I can't find right now) I did not push hard enough to
actually make anything more transparent than it was, leaving us in the same
hole when I left as when I came in. So this situation is in part my fault -
I apologize, Kyle; it should have been resolved many years ago.)


>
>
>> Back to L0-R, of course I am happy to address policy
>> concerns, in addition to OSD issues.  I think I have, though
>> it takes more work in communication, and can feel a bit
>> rudderless without common, written ground to start from.
>> I've also taken pains to ask others to help me tell when
>> we're talking policy, and when we're talking OSD.  It's come
>> up a lot.
>>
>
> Here's a potential diagnostic question for you. Do you believe LO-R will
> be identified by FSF as a Free Software License? I don't recall you
> mentioning that so far.
>

As an example of the lack of transparency Kyle is (patiently, politely)
pointing out, FSF approval is not mentioned in the mission, the OSD, or any
other OSI document, as far as I'm aware. So it is un-transparent, even to a
well-intentioned and fairly sophisticated drafter like Kyle, why it should
be diagnostic for OSI approval.

Luis
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