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

Russell Nelson nelson at crynwr.com
Fri Mar 20 13:47:13 UTC 2020


On 3/20/20 8:48 AM, Russell McOrmond wrote:
>
>     Note I’m not saying: “change the OSD to allow ethical licenses,”
>     I’m saying “work hand in hand to account for the concerns of the
>     broader community to find reasonable solutions that meet those
>     concerns.”
>
>
> We have already accounted for those concerns, if only people were open 
> enough to listen.

The history of the OSI is filled with people who think the creator of 
the work needs more control. Decades of attempts to loosen the OSD. We 
have resisted these clarion calls and been successful in spite of them. 
Yes, Tobie, we will listen to your concerns, but please understand that 
you are not the first and will not be the last to want and not get changes.

Restrictions spur creativity. Look at BitKeeper. They wanted to be the 
standard Open Source code repository. Heck, they *were* the kernel 
repository for a few years. But they weren't willing to comply with the 
strictures imposed by the OSD (and there was much discussion about 
that). What happened? Linus wrote git. Sure, people have Issues with git 
(but read 
https://tom.preston-werner.com/2009/05/19/the-git-parable.html?HN), but 
it's open source and been successfully adopted by many parties.


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