[License-discuss] Logo for an (O)pen (S)ource (Li)cense (C)ompendium

Wed Feb 22 20:29:41 UTC 2012

Karsten,

It might be even more useful for developers* to discuss a wider range of
licenses than falls under OSI approved licenses much like CC covers
licenses ranging from CC0 to CC-NC-ND.  Reference licenses, Academic
(non-commerical) licenses, etc all have business uses if your target is
large IT companies. That would, of course, require your own new logo as it
would be out of scope for the OSI.

Really, what you are suggesting is what OSI should be doing.  Perhaps you
can provide the resources required to generate a CC like plain English
and/or German explanation of the legal requirements (aka your todo list)
for the various OSI licenses under the OSI banner itself.  There no new
logo is required.

Large IT companies have legal departments that should understand IP issues
and will have to know the requirements for all the jurisdictions where
they have presence.  As much as possible anyway.

What jurisdictions were you thinking of covering in your compendium?

Will DTAG give OSI oversight and edit powers on the compendium?  A logo
that looks like the OSI logo implies that OSI approves of your
interpretations.  Especially if the OSI explicitly grants you permission
to use a similar logo.

What does "develop this compendium together with the community" really
mean in this context?  Why not first attempt do it under the auspices of
the OSI itself?  I would imagine the OSI would welcome this kind of help
and you might get more contributors.

A product carrying a logo similar looking to the OSI logo but isn't
actually from the OSI strikes me as sketchy.

I note that you are already using that logo on your oslic.org domain.  I
assume for testing but...why the little TM symbol already on your logo?

Your domain is also blocked by our websense filters as a potentially
damaging site.  You should have your webadmin look into that.

Regards,

Nigel

* Frankly, what is needed are CC licenses safe for software use.  Every so
often I bump into software licensed under CC anyway.

On 2/22/12 2:04 PM, "Reincke, Karsten" <k.reincke at telekom.de> wrote:

>Dear Karl; 
>
>Sorry for posting 'twice'; your first answer didn't arrive me. You asked:
>
>> I'm not sure what the answer is yet; we'll have to discuss it with the
>> Board.  But first, can you tell us whether it is the case that every
>> license discussed in the compendium is OSI-approved?  One thing's for
>> sure: we can't have our logo used to refer to non-OSI-approved licenses,
>> so that question is fundamental I think.
>
>Topic of the compendium 'OSLiC' are solely the OSI approved licenses. We
>don't want to cover / to discuss other licenses, neither proprietary
>licenses nor public domain licenses. The title is meant strictly: Open
>Source License Compendium, nothing else.
>
>in the hope to support a positive decision
>Karsten
>---
>Deutsche Telekom AG
>Products & Innovation
>Karsten Reincke, PMP®
>Fach-Senior Manager PC&S
>Software Engineering
>T-Online-Allee 1
>64295 Darmstadt
>Tel.: +49 6151 680 - 8941
>Fax.: +49 6151 680 - 2529
>E-Mail k.reincke at telekom.de
>http://www.telekom.de/
>________________________________________
>Von: Karl Fogel [kfogel at red-bean.com]
>Gesendet: Mittwoch, 22. Februar 2012 18:18
>An: license-discuss at opensource.org
>Betreff: Re: [License-discuss] Logo for an (O)pen (S)ource (Li)cense
>(C)ompendium
>
>[I think Karsten reposted this because there was a moderation delay on
>the original message, to which I have already responded on-list.  Please
>use that original thread if possible.]
>
>-K
>
>"Reincke, Karsten" <k.reincke at telekom.de> writes:
>>Deutsche Telekom AG (DTAG) is writing an Open Source License
>>Compendium, which we intend to be made available to the whole Open
>>Source community.
>>
>>Large (IT) companies are particularily challenged by the quantity of
>>licenses and their various versions. It is becoming quite expensive
>>for each company to allocate and train employees as "Open Source
>>License Experts" in order to ensure that the company acts according to
>>those Open Source licenses touched by their projects. A better
>>solution would be to have something like a "compendium" which lists
>>all relevant usage scenarios, and offers for the major Open Source
>>licenses something like a to-do list that describes what one has to do
>>in order to fulfill the license conditions applicable to these usage
>>scenarios. As far as we know such a reliable compendium doesn't exist
>>at the moment.
>>
>>Following the spirit of Open Source Software, DTAG wants to publish
>>this compendium under the license 'Creative Commons
>>Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Germany'. Moreover, DTAG intends to host
>>the sources of this compendium on github: we want to follow the rule
>>publish early, publish often', and to develop this compendium together
>>with the community.
>>
>>As this compendium will serve the Open Source community, and also
>>perhaps help the Open Source Initiative achieve its goals of promoting
>>open source usage and bridging the gaps between producers and
>>consumers of open source software, we would like adopt a logo that
>>reflects this. As such, we are considering this image:
>>http://www.oslic.org/fileadmin/images/oslic-logo-315x252.png. We would
>>like to ask the Open Source Initiative if this would be acceptable to
>>the organisation.
>>
>>We understand that 'Opensource.org site content is licensed under a
>>Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License'. Hence, deriving something
>>from the OSI logo can be achieved, and we naturally also want to
>>respect the OSI Logo Usage Guidelines (
>>http://www.opensource.org/logo-usage-guidelines). Our proposed logo
>>shall express that the OSLiC (Open Source License Compendium) shall
>>act according to the spirit and intentions of the 'umbrella' Open
>>Source Initiative
>>
>>We look forward to your feedback, and sincerely hope that the proposed
>>logo is acceptable. Please let us know if this is the case.
>>
>>Best Regards
>>K. Reincke, G. Sharpe, J. Dobson
>>---
>>Deutsche Telekom AG
>>Products & Innovation
>>Karsten Reincke, PMP®
>>Fach-Senior Manager T&P/A&S/TM
>>T-Online-Allee 1
>>64295 Darmstadt
>>Tel.: +49 6151 680 - 8941
>>Fax.: +49 6151 680 - 2529
>>E-Mail k.reincke at telekom.de
>>http://www.telekom.de/
>>
>>Erleben, was verbindet.
>>
>>Deutsche Telekom AG
>>Aufsichtsrat: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Lehner (Vorsitzender)
>>Vorstand: René Obermann (Vorsitzender),
>>Dr. Manfred Balz, Reinhard Clemens, Niek Jan van Damme, Timotheus
>>Höttges, Claudia Nemat, Thomas Sattelberger
>>Handelsregister: Amtsgericht Bonn HRB 6794 Sitz der Gesellschaft: Bonn
>>WEEE-Reg.-Nr. DE50478376
>>
>>Große Veränderungen fangen klein an - Ressourcen schonen und nicht
>>jede E-Mail drucken.
>>
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