rms at 1407.org claiming "licenses aren't contracts" and that...

[Matthew Flaschen]

Lawrence Rosen wrote:
> Matthew Flaschen wrote:
>> This is ridiculous.  The list is not for general copyright law
>> discussions
> Some discussions here may indeed be ridiculous (and I ignore many of them)

What I was specifically referring to as ridiculous was "Why not discuss
here on *license discuss* forum (not license approval or some such)."
I.E. Alexander implied (to my reading) that since the list was called
license-discuss anything related to licenses was welcome.

> but where do the OSI rules state those restrictions on list content?

I've actually come to the opinion that the rules /should/ be stated
officially.  It doesn't have to be complicated.  I suggest:

Charter

The purpose of license-discuss is to help the OSI Board determine
whether licenses submitted to OSI comply with the Open Source Definition.

> Some people, I fear, are being a little too censoring.

Note that I haven't called most of Alexander's posts off-topic, though
many are.  I just fundamentally object to the idea behind the quote above.

> Are you trying to save me from the trolls? Then implement better tools than email that make it easier
> to ignore things I don't want to hear.... 

I have no objection to a better tool (though it should have a gateway to
email for legacy), but I would feel disappointed if OSI changed tools
merely because of signal to noise ratio.

> Censor not so that ye be not censored.

I'm not sure that's entirely fair.  I have been censored here
occasionally, when I was off-topic.  I think that's reasonable, and
would set the same rules for everyone.

And of course, it's not true censorship as long as someone can create
his own forum.

Matt Flaschen