[License-review] Encouraging discussion around the technicalities of licensing

[Simon Phipps]

Many thanks for your comments, Martijn.

On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 10:04 AM Martijn Verburg <martijnverburg at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> *Background Disclaimer* - I sit on a fair number of industry body boards,
> community groups, steering committees etc around the Java ecosystem - so
> I'm biased in how I perceive communication.
>
> I’m a newcomer to this list and I’ve mostly been in ‘read-only’ mode so I
> can figure out what the list norms are. There is one aspect that I feel as
> a collective we could do a little better on, I'll try to explain below.
>
> I’ve seen some really excellent messages and threads clearly explaining
> why a license proposal fails a particular OSD clause. It’s been truly
> insightful stuff and it's the sort of communication that really makes the
> OSI stand out as an entity!
>
> I’ve also seen quite a fair bit of emotive/hostile language used, even
> against folks who are new here and come in good faith (yes I feel we should
> assume good faith in the first instance). I understand why OSS licensing
> and discussions around software freedoms bring out strong feelings, these
> topics *matter* and have far-reaching impacts on our industry and even
> (dare I say it) our society as a whole.
>
> I’d very much like to see the OSI continue to be held in high regard,
> whose members defend the OSD principles with reasoned arguments and even
> offer guidance to license authors on how they can meet those principles. I
> think if we focus on that in this list we'll get better long term results
> for the OSI and the defense of the OSD clauses.
>
> Right, now that I've committed the mailing list sin of the newcomer
> telling everyone how to behave.... :-) - I'll happily take
> comments/questions/feedback and even some sticks and stones ;-).
>
> Cheers,
> Martijn
>

I agree; the list is for discussing the approval of the license and not for
the approval of the submitter or their business. We welcome comments that
help the submitter know how to correct defects in the text, or to
understand why their goals cannot achieve the effect they are seeking with
the license while still creating an OSD-compliant license. We also welcome
comments that support the text as OSD compliant. Comments aimed at the
submitter alone, such as about their business, business model or investors,
are rarely appropriate.

Best regards,

Simon
-- 
Simon Phipps*, President, The Open Source Initiative*
www.opensource.org
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