License Committee Report for September 2008

Alex Wang alexwang at sursen.com
Thu Nov 13 16:00:41 UTC 2008


 
Matt Flaschen wrote:

>I don't think you have any right to suggest you understand what will
benefit the open source movement better than the OSI.  In the 10 years since
the OSI formed, the free/open source movement has succeeded beyond belief.
I think they wrote the OSD basically right the first time (and OSD #10 was
also an improvement).
You may disagree with me, but I always have right to suggest. It is funny
that a free/open movement is not freely for suggestion. I checked web
yesterday and found that Bruce is co-founder of OSI, and I was nobody when
he participated open source movement. But this fact can't prove that I am
unable to have one suggestion that is different than Bruce and can benefit
open source movement. Furthermore, the great achievement of OSI is not the
evidence that OSI board is always 100% correct. The way that "I am
experienced so that you have no right to argue" is helpless to open source
movement, or Obama would have no right to argue to Bush or McCain neither.

>Yes, your license would be popular.  It would expand the "open source"
movement.  But this is not a popularity contest; we want what people "open
source" to really /be/ open source.
Do you mean that you (and OSI) don't mind expanding the open source
movement, you only concern promoting YOUR open source way. That means, the
OSD is OSI's beleif, OSI do its best to promote open source software that
meets the requirement of OSD, the other open source software (which doesn't
meet the requirement of OSD) is the partner of OSI, but OSI will never
consider accepting them in any case. Is my understanding right?

>> I beleive you undertsand this principle since OSI agreed to accept
business usage, instead of  insisting on GPL.
>You don't know how ridiculous that statement is.  Red Hat and other
businesses make millions of dollars developing and selling GPL software.
Sorry for misleading due to my poor English and bad expression. What I
stated is that there exist some OSI aprroved licenses that allow the source
code being used together with business close-source software.

In total, if OSI only promotes OSD software instead of open source software,
it's my mistake to bother OSI board. In additional, the name of "Open Source
Definition" also misleads me. Now, I find that there are two meaning of Open
Source, the nature meaning is what I understand, but you redefine it
yourself. The nature meaning has wide range, while your definition is
narrow. I don't know how about the trademark or other related law issue, is
"Open Source" your trademark worldwide or just "OSI"? It seems like someone
redefined computer as it must run Linux, therefore any Windows PC doesn't
meet the Computer Definition and is no longer a computer.

I just read some articles about freeware vs. open source. I commiserate you.
When open community hasn't successed(the evidence is MS earn $20+B from
Windows and MS Office per year), people of open community attack each other.
I took for grant that only Chinese like faction, now I find that I am wrong,
open community people also like faction.
Regarding politics that Stallman often mentioned, I have rich experience of
how extremely democracy kill democracy and actually help autarchy. For
example, if we want to elect every officer, the country will crash down. In
other words, if the requirement of democracy is too extremely to be
feasible, this kind of requirement will be negative for democracy because
people will be educated that democracy will hurt their life and is a bad
thing.

I am aware now that the faction within open community has been persisting
for a decade, I can not change it since I am nobody and you guys are unable
to hear reasonable suggestion. Sorry for my ignorance, I understand more
about OSI now and will back if I really invovle something meets requirement
of OSD in future. Thanks for your time and patient.

At last, may open community success under endeavors of Open Source people,
Freeware people and other open community people.

Best Regards

-Alex





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