[License-discuss] OSI as guarantor for "or later" *GPL clauses

[Enrico Zini]

On Wed, Sep 08, 2021 at 04:27:48PM +0200, Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz via License-discuss wrote:

> Yes the idea is interesting.
> So you avoid giving a "blank check" to the FSF by giving another to OSI...
> I assume that both organisations are safe :-)

My intention is actually to avoid giving a blank check to any
organization: a new version of the GPL would have to be published by
FSF, but for it to be considered valid for my code it'd need to be OK-ed
by OSI.


> For its EUPL compatibility, the European Commission avoided references to
> external entities by specifying:
> " later versions of the licence as long as they provide the rights granted
> in Article 2 of this Licence and protect the covered Source Code from
> exclusive appropriation."
> An alternative way...

Right. That seems like it'd invite argument and litigation around
different opinions on where such rights are granted well enough by new
versions of the license.

Having a second organization give a simple ack/nack would bring the
arguments and litigation away from the problem of interpreting the
license of my software :)


Enrico

-- 
GPG key: 4096R/634F4BD1E7AD5568 2009-05-08 Enrico Zini <enrico at enricozini.org>