[License-review] License Committee Report - January 2017

[Josh berkus]

On 01/09/2017 08:35 AM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 09, 2017 at 08:08:26AM -0800, Josh berkus wrote:
>> On 01/08/2017 07:52 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> 
> [...]
>>> Zentao Public License
>>> =====================
>>>
>>> Submission:
>>> https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2016-June/002800.html
>>>
>>> Comments: Submission did not fully follow approval
>>> requirements. Substantive discussion focused on the badgeware issue;
>>> some suggested that legacy approval might be a more appropriate
>>> path. 
>>>
>>> Recommendation: Reject.
>>
>> Why is it "reject" if we're recommending legacy approval?  This doesn't
>> make any sense.
> 
> Legacy approval was recommended casually by one or two people. Maybe I
> shouldn't have even bothered to note that in the 'Comments'. I am not
> sure that recommendation itself made that much sense given that many
> people (yourself included I think) were saying that perhaps OSI just
> shouldn't approve any badgeware licenses going forward. I am inclined
> to agree with that policy but I believe it should apply across the
> board including to legacy approval licenses.

Looking at history, the submitter never clarified if updates to the
license were possible.  Also, the license's main langauage is Chinese,
and needs to be reviewed in that language, which I think stalled us.

> 
> The license submitter himself or herself did not submit the license
> for legacy approval. Resubmission for legacy approval is a possibility
> (though I am not sure if legacy approval is really an appropriate
> category here -- I don't think this was really explored thoroughly; my
> sense is this license would not fit the intended use of the legacy
> approval category).

I think we need to introduce that topic.  I don't know if you missed it,
but this license is *already being used* for an assortment of
Chinese-language projects with substantial numbers of users.  So if
there's any way to do legacy approval, I think we should.

-- Josh Berkus