[License-review] License Committee Report - January 2017

[Smith, McCoy]

Richard, your recollection on BSD+Patent is essentially correct.
Prior to submission to OSI, I had inquired of FSF if they could confirm my strongly held opinion that that license was GPLv2 compatible.  I did not get a response.  After I submitted it to OSI, several on the mailing list suggested that getting that confirmation was something that ought to be done before approval.  So I said I would take another crack at it, and that the license should not be submitted for board approval until then.  I've also gotten several helpful comments on the drafting of the license that I haven't incorporated into the current draft of the license (there was a revised draft that I did post to the mailing list that was in response to several helpful comments from members of the mailing list).
I have yet to hear back from FSF on the GPLv2 compatibility inquiries I have made.  I'm beginning to get the sense (for several reasons) that I will not receive a response, at least not anytime soon.  Which means I may need to have the license considered without a definitive statement from FSF on the GPLv2 compatibility question.
I would suggest that, for the purpose of your current recommendation to the Board, that the BSD+Patent license be listed as "still under discussion";  I will revive the discussion and drafting of the license later in this month.  I'm at this point likely going to have to say that I strongly believe it to be GPLv2 compatible and it has been drafted specifically so that it is, but that a definitive statement in that regard is probably not going to be forthcoming from the FSF any time soon.
McCoy

-----Original Message-----
From: License-review [mailto:license-review-bounces at opensource.org] On Behalf Of Richard Fontana
Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2017 7:53 PM
To: license-review at opensource.org
Subject: [License-review] License Committee Report - January 2017

I believe the following are all the outstanding licenses submitted between October 2015 and the present, plus NOSA 2.0:



BSD + Patent License
====================

Submission: https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2016-January/002640.html

Comments: I see that the last posting to this list on BSD + Patent was McCoy Smith's revised text:
https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2016-January/002709.html

For some reason I had it in my head that this license had been temporarily withdrawn from consideration so that an opinion from the FSF confirming GPL compatibility could be obtained, but re-reading the thread I see no basis for this other than that someone suggested this as a prudent course of action.

Recommendation: Ask McCoy Smith to clarify whether he wishes for review of the BSD + Patent license to be revived (based on the January
27 2016 submission or some subsequent revision), and if so encourage further discussion on this list.