[License-review] License drafting quality and process [was Re: Comment on MOSL and similar licenses]

[Richard Fontana]

On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 01:40:59PM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Richard,
> 
> > It is probably true that such licenses were a waste of time. I just do
> > not see why one would assume that consulting an arbitrary attorney
> > would on average have resulted in something better
> 
> Mostly just because it requires convincing at least one other person
> that your license is worth someone's time and/or money before you come here.
> 
> > Some of the most problematic pseudo or questionably-FLOSS licenses
> > I've seen over the years clearly *were* drafted with legal help.
> 
> No question.  If you come up with a way to screen most of those out,
> too, I'm all ears.

I don't think that category can be screened out (prior to discussion
on a list like this). I wonder whether the other category could be
screened out by requiring some threshold number of supporters > 1 (as
an alternative to the suggestion of getting legal review). I get the
sense that the waste-of-time licenses are most often just the work of
one developer acting in isolation, as opposed to, say, a group of
developers.

- RF