WebM license third-party submission

Simon Phipps webmink at gmail.com
Wed May 26 20:11:25 UTC 2010


On May 26, 2010, at 17:42, Chris DiBona wrote:

> We'll engage with osi in a couple of weeks, likely as not. 

Most others engage with OSI before they publish a new license and declare it open source.

> we will want a couple of changes to how OSI does licenses

Uhuh. I see. Thanks for asking.

> 1) We will likely want a label explicitly deterring the use of the license.

That would presumably be a request to use the category "Non-reusable licenses" from http://www.opensource.org/proliferation-report and does not appear to require any changes.

> 2) We will want the bod list archives open for any discussions of webm.

I would expect any position on a license presented for approval to reflect the (public) discussion on this list alone, as appears to have been the existing practice for many years. So this too appears to need no changes.

> We are not comfortable with OSI being closed.

I'm not aware of any private discussions about any license on the (private) BoD list since I have had access to it. Just as at Apache and every other organisation where I've participated, it's appropriate for some discussions by the Board to be kept in confidence and I see no reason to end that practice - do you? 

> This might sound strident, but I think that OSI needs to be more open about
> its workings to retain credibility in the space.

Yes, it does sound a little as if you want to accuse the OSI Board of something here, Chris, or frame Google as a pioneer for good at the expense of OSI. Is there a discussion of the "closedness" you are referring to or is this a comment derived from a personal experience?

S.




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