License Proliferation Dissatisfaction

Eugene Wee eugenew at starhub.net.sg
Mon Apr 23 02:47:42 UTC 2007


> We did not consider it
> practical to recommend licences that are rarely used, however sound
> their legal drafting may be.

 From what I see, effectively the "recommendation" is just a placement 
at the top category, according to whether the license is "popular and 
widely used or with strong communities". I think Larry's gripe is that 
"redundant with more popular licenses" is a negative recommendation, due 
to the negative connotation.

Why not compromise with a "legally sound but less widely used licences" 
category? That way users can more clearly decide if they want a license 
whose enforcement and interpretation may have a precedent and be 
established in a large community versus a license that is legally robust 
on its own but without strong community use.

> If he can get the numbers up on his license, then we will certainly
> consider moving his license(s)s to the "Strong Communities" category.

To be fair, that becomes something of a Catch-22 situation: anyone who 
wants to cite the OSI website when recommending the AFL has to explain 
why they recommend it when the OSI considers it "redundant". This 
imposes a barrier to its adoption, which in turn would make entry to the 
"Strong Communities" category more difficult.

Regards,
Eugene Wee



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