menu license

[Seth David Schoen]

Gregory Martin Pfeil writes:

> Here's my take:
> 
> Have a few complete licenses set up -- like OSI-restrictive,
> OSI-public, and OSI-open, each one being progressively more open.
> 
> People can cut-paste entire sections only.  And there may be certain
> rules that require sections to go hand-in-hand (i.e. Section 3 of
> OSI-r may require Section 7 of OSI-r or OSI-p, but not OSI-o).  This
> can all be scripted via CGI and done up on the Web.
> 
> Any license that can be created this way is automatically certified by
> the OSI, and can be labeled a "restrictive", "public", or "open"
> license by means of determining (with a script) which version the
> weightiest sections are from.
> 
> Also, since each section must be copied in its entirety, each section
> can be labeled "Section 4, from OSI-public license" or such, making it
> easy for people who are familiar with that license to skim those
> sections.
> 
> Also, people can take entire sections, and label them as such, to be
> used in their own non-certified licenses.
> 
> I didn't say this would be easy, legalese is not my area, but how does
> this sound?

Fun, but likely to create even more confusion for users.  And a bit of a
nightmare in litigation.

It would be fun to write a grammar for all the licenses that could be
produced this way, though.  Then you could write a very concise definition of
a particular license.

-- 
                    Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org>
      They said look at the light we're giving you,  /  And the darkness
      that we're saving you from.   -- Dar Williams, "The Great Unknown"
  http://ishmael.geecs.org/~sigma/  (personal)  http://www.loyalty.org/  (CAF)