Chip Salzenberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > More generally, though, the OSD is like any formal standard -- besides > the legalistic meeting of requirements, there are issues of Quality Of > Implementation.
Sure, but that's only good for the blatantly obvious issues. There's another class of subtler issues (for example where the true impact of a clause doesn't become apparent till after some strategic change). The goal debian tries to shoot for is, basically: you can take our stuff and use it without having to research copyright issues, unless you want to do something that mixes in some new copyright combination. [For example: you can continue to sell your cdrom inventory, you can continue to get bugfixes for the programs you're using, if you need to add a significant feature you're allowed to do that.] OSD has a more abstract job (since you're ruling on licenses instead of software), but it seems like putting yourself in the shoes of people [developers, administrators, cdrom publishers, etc..] who would have to rely on the OSD software would be a good mental excercise: Each has to invest significant resources in a piece of software before it becomes important, and it's at that point where the "freeness" of the license becomes important. And the basic issue here is: any kind of revocation clause puts that kind of implicit guarantee at risk. [And I think it would be sad if OSD certification didn't provide this sort of implicit promise.] -- Raul
