OpenLDAP license

Matthew C. Weigel weigel+ at pitt.edu
Fri Apr 13 18:50:07 UTC 2001


On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, Ryan S. Dancey wrote:

> [ as a side note, I think this is one of the places where the OSD
> itself is flawed.  The language of #2 should say, in my opinion: "The
> license must allow modifications and derived works, and must REQUIRE
> them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the
> original software." ]

You're welcome to your opinion; however, such an opinion - given the
other things you have said - would presuppose that the Free Software
community in general held that such a requirement was necessary for
Free Software licenses, or that alternatively the Open Source community
(insofar as it differs from the Free Software community) held such a
view.  Or else it suggests that you want to change the definition of
Open Source (and possibly Free Software) to something 'better,' which
is contrary to the OSI.

In short, it apears that either your opinion is founded upon incorrect
assumptions, or your opinion is incompatible with anything the OSI does
as a representative (not leader) of the Open Source community.

This disregards the technical claim that the BSD license is not Open
Source.  I think that, given the claim of the Free Software Foundation
that the BSD license is Free Software, it follows that if the OSD
excludes the BSD license, then it is in error.

However, it isn't.  The source code to BSD licensed software is
available from well-publicized sources; it is the DERIVATIVE WORKS -
with which I've dealt above - that may or may not be OSI Certified
software.
-- 
 Matthew Weigel
 Research Systems Programmer
 weigel+ at pitt.edu




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