[License-discuss] How can we as a community help empower authors outside license agreements?

Tobie Langel tobie at unlockopen.com
Wed Mar 18 15:50:46 UTC 2020


On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 3:51 PM Russell Nelson <nelson at crynwr.com> wrote:

> On 3/17/20 6:14 PM, Tobie Langel wrote:
>
> If OSI is to be the custodian of open source, it needs to be
> representative of the open source community at large. Not based on a winner
> takes model, which is, by definition, not representative.
>
> Sure, but Ethical Software isn't Open Source. That's what we keep telling
> you. If you want to prevent "unethical" entities from using your software,
> you are separating yourself from the Open Source community.
>
> A lot of open source practitioners would disagree with that statement. Who
makes the rules? Ultimately the community does. Not the OSI.

Of course, the OSI can decide to ignore the broader open source community
by deciding that only the community that agrees with its definition of open
source is relevant. That seems like an untenable position, however. And it
won't do anything from preventing others to think of what they are doing as
open source and call it that way. Frankly, that would be quite a big
footgun.

--tobie
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