Questions to OSI Board quorum

[Russell Nelson]

David Ryan writes:
 > I agree with Chris on this.  I was surprised that Russell actually said 
 > it would be ok.  The main reason I brought it up was to make sure I 
 > fully understood where the OSI stood on these issues.  However, given 
 > Russell's response, I'm completely confused.

Chris is correct.  I had forgotten about the "same license" clause.
That's there so that a license can't add restrictions on subsequent
redistributors.  I hadn't thought about it in the case of removing
restrictions, but Chris is right; the license still has the problem
that the subsequent redistributors owe a copy of the code to the
original contributor.

 > I'm still pondering how to proceed with my software.  Given the OVPL is 
 > now *not* compliant with the OSD, I have a lot more freedom in making 
 > other incompatible changes.  I'm starting to look around at other 
 > licenses to see if there is any value in them.

Also look at the Aladdin Free Public License.  You could also not
license your code at all and instead simply put up a copy on your
website.  That means that people who want a copy of your code MUST go
to your distribution point to get it.  They could still modify it in
any way before installing it, but it would force any competitors to
have to tell their customers "Go get the source from my competitors's
website".  Not open source because it doesn't allow for
redistribution, but it's Source Available, which a lot better than
many alternatives.

-- 
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