[License-discuss] Greetings, Earthlings! Need quotes for article

Richard Fontana rfontana at redhat.com
Wed Dec 21 21:47:29 UTC 2011


On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 03:50:51PM -0500, Karl Fogel wrote:
> Without making any assertions as to the open-sourceness or lack thereof
> of CPAL-1.0, I'm surprised to see it absent from this list -- whenever
> the subject of mis-approval comes up, that one's usually mentioned, for
> reasons discussed earlier in this thread.

My recollection is that CPAL was itself the result of earlier
criticism of badgeware licenses (typically MPL 1.1 with an added
clause, as I recall) by people on license-discuss, and was presumably
approved by the OSI because it was seen as sufficiently responsive to
those criticisms. I'd certainly consider it at the outer limit of
acceptability. 

> Richard, did you and Tom keep notes about specifically why you deemed
> each of the above to be non-FOSS?  I assume the reasons are not the same
> in every case.

Yes, but I'd have to dig the details up since the review of these
licenses took place in (I believe) 2008.  I've been meaning to do that
anyway, and to publish the rationale.  In at least one case (OCLC-2.0)
at least one issue involved restrictions on commercial use. 

- Richard




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