For Approval: Open Source Software Alliance License

Russell Nelson nelson at crynwr.com
Sun Sep 28 15:45:10 UTC 2003


Mike Wattier writes:
 > > The OSI is a political organization 
 > 
 > yeah.. and IMHO this is the very reason that many who want to
 > support the Open Source community, will not do so. It is slowly
 > becoming a cheerleading section for the GPL.

Not really.  The GPL is legally troubled.  It attempts to do things
which require formation of a contract, and yet it explicitly claims to
not be a license but instead only copyright permissions.

The Open Software License is a better, if lesser known choice.

 > Well..there are those within the "community" to which the GPL is a
 > hindrance, plain and simple.

The only reason I can see for this is because you wish to siphon work
out of the community's tank.

 > Those of us who own small businesses have needs that are not being
 > met by currently defined OSI approved licenses,

Then devise a license which fits under the Open Source Definition.  No
worries, mate.

 > for doing this, however the trend on new license submissions is
 > always "use an existing license" or "use the GPL"

Indeed, yes.  License proliferation is a problem, particularly when
the terms conflict.

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