Re: Self-certification
> > This is the problem Russel Nelson and I are investigating in our > discussion of section 2 of the OSD. Right. I didn't see you discuss that the wording for appplying the mark needs to be on the other web page, not just in OSD #2. (And maybe if the change was there, you would not even have to change OSD #2.) In any case, if OSD #2 gets reworded by your efforts, please see that the certification mark page is updated also. --- On a related point, in looking at the website (which I prefer over the initial version, if anyone remembers it), I am wondering about the emphasis and target audience. opensource.org has always been laid out as a website for producers. (I think it sort of invites you to write your own license, based on the ordering and wording of links.) But isn't the purpose of a mark to inform consumers, not producers? Perhaps the opensource.org certification mark page (or something like it) should be the home page. The link to the points of the OSD should be from within the context of the certification mark page only, (where it describes licenses which qualify.) I'm sure you would want to preserve some of the cheerleading text from the home page, placing it into the certification mark page. And you would want to split the certification mark page, which is far too long as it is. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Self-certification
One of the reasons I think the recent discussion is important, (and not the wide-open opportunity for trolling it appears to be) is that the OSI web page says this: (From http://www.opensource.org/docs/certification_mark.html ...) USING THE MARK "You may use the OSI Certified mark on any software that is distributed under an OSI-approved license." I think there is a consensus forming that the requirements for self-certification must be amended to require OSD #2 explicitly. Otherwise, someone can self-certify a binary-only distribution under MIT, for example, keeping the source private, and still meet the listed requirements to self-certify and use the OSI mark. Ridiculous? yes. But that is indeed what the page says. Can the page be changed? -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: YAPL is bad (was: Re: Backlog assistance?)
begin Steve Lhomme quotation: > Here is my practical case for your pragmatic minds : I'm working (not > alone) on a derivation of the QPL license in order to make it GPL > compatible (and also a few minor changes). Splendid. We will await with interest the cessation of rhetoric and submission of licence terms to scrutinise. > Maybe for you it's not a big change, but for me it IS. As it's "overly > duplicate existing licenses" it would probably not qualify for the OSD > to check it... Judge for yourself. The process is outlined here: http://www.opensource.org/docs/certification_mark.html#approval > But is the OSD here to decide for the developpers what are the license > that "deserve" to be compliant ? Another polemical rhetorical question for my collection. You're really much too kind. > Do you think that's fair to newcomers ? Do you think that encourage > the growth of the Open-Source community ? Do you think it makes > evolution possible (AFAIK evolution is different from revolution > because it's made of small changes here and there) ? Really, I must decline this embarrassment of riches. My closet is overflowing. But thank you. > BTW Rick, was that an invitation to leave this list (my english is > average) ? Negatory, sir. > Why didn't you answer my concern (which IMHO makes sense) instead ? Consider the proposition that I'm simply a cruel and heartless bastard. That might account for it. Or possibly not. -- "Is it not the beauty of an asynchronous form of discussion that one can go and make cups of tea, floss the cat, fluff the geraniums, open the kitchen window and scream out it with operatic force, volume, and decorum, and then return to the vexed glowing letters calmer of mind and soul?" -- The Cube, forum3000.org -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: YAPL is bad (was: Re: Backlog assistance?)
begin Karsten M. Self quotation: > - Apple's Darwin project is under the APSL, which remains quite > controversial. Well, it is and it isn't. I examined this in at least a little bit of detail when Evan Liebovitch was castigating Apple for allegedly leeching (I paraphrase) off the BSDs. Darwin's "xnu" kernel is APSL-licensed -- in part. (Don't forget there's code from CMU and BSD code, there.) Darwin Streaming Server is APSL. Code for the Common Data Security Architecture, and for the OpenPlay and NetSprocket abstraction layers is APSL, as is a small developer tool called HeaderDoc. But just about all the other code in Darwin is under the same mix of sundry open-source licences found in, say, NetBSD. And, as I said to Evan at the time -- contrary to his assertion -- Apple's consistent policy as far as I can tell has always been to contribute changes to the upstream maintainers of those codebases under the upstream licences. (Darwin should not be confused with MacOS X, which is a superset of Darwin adding several proprietary pieces.) -- "Is it not the beauty of an asynchronous form of discussion that one can go and make cups of tea, floss the cat, fluff the geraniums, open the kitchen window and scream out it with operatic force, volume, and decorum, and then return to the vexed glowing letters calmer of mind and soul?" -- The Cube, forum3000.org -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: click, click, boom
I'm lurking in the background reading the interesting discussions about the MIT license and issues of the OSD being unclear. As time permits I may comment more extensively about those topics. But one item needs to be clarified: OSI *certifies* software. OSI *approves* licenses. This is a legally significant distinction. OSI approves licenses if and only if the license is consistent with the provisions of the published Open Source Definition. As are others on this list, I am troubled by the fact that the OSD is unclear in some respects. I hope to work with the community in the future (as time permits) to propose clarifications to the OSD for OSI Board of Directors approval. Aspects of licenses that are not related to specific OSD provisions are irrelevant to the approval process, but those aspects may otherwise become important to (1) your selection of third-party software for your use or (2) your selection of an appropriate license under which you will distribute your own software. Distributors can apply the OSI Certified certification mark to their software if and only if the software is distributed under an OSI-approved license. /Larry Rosen > -Original Message- > From: Rick Moen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 12:19 AM > To: license discuss > Subject: Re: click, click, boom > > > begin Greg London quotation: > > > If someone puts out a bunch of source code under the MIT > license, and > > the distro is OSI certifiable, there is nothing to prevent someone > > else from redistributing it in binary form only. Their only > "penalty" > > is that they lose OSI certification. > > _Licences_ are OSD-certified. Software is open-source or not, in > accordance with its nature (including but not limited to licensing). > Beyond that, you're not telling us anything we don't already know. > > > So, all I'm saying is that if someone looks at the OSD and likes it, > > they can't just go and pick any OSI approved license and > have it give > > legal enforcability of all the OSD bullets. > > Only _licences_ potentially have legal enforceability. The > OSD is just > a set of guidelines published by the OSI for licence certiification. > > > If I pick the MIT license, then OSD #2 is not enforcable. > > See above. You are suffering category confusion. > > > I don't care what the "spirit" of the OSD is. > > Well, then, the situation is pleasingly symmetrical, since the rest of > us aren't likely to care about your views, either. > > > But the OSD is not a license. > > Nor does it purport to be. > > > And it is the license that controls how a distribution may be > > re-distributed. > > That is self-evident. > > > Unless there is some other implication of enforcemnet to OSI > > certification that I am unaware of. > > Do you have a point, or are you simply ruminating on the vagaries of > power and influence? > > -- > "Is it not the beauty of an asynchronous form of discussion > that one can go and > make cups of tea, floss the cat, fluff the geraniums, open > the kitchen window > and scream out it with operatic force, volume, and decorum, > and then return to > the vexed glowing letters calmer of mind and soul?" -- The > Cube, forum3000.org > -- > license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 > -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: click, click, boom
begin Greg London quotation: >> _Licences_ are OSD-certified. Software is open-source or not, in >> accordance with its nature (including but not limited to licensing). > > http://www.opensource.org/docs/certification_mark.html > "The OSI Certified mark applies to software, not to licenses. " Was there some particular part of the term "OSD" you did not understand? Take a break, Greg. Think. Read. Then come back and join us. -- "Is it not the beauty of an asynchronous form of discussion that one can go and make cups of tea, floss the cat, fluff the geraniums, open the kitchen window and scream out it with operatic force, volume, and decorum, and then return to the vexed glowing letters calmer of mind and soul?" -- The Cube, forum3000.org -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: books about free software & open source movement
Here's me (slightly outdated) list: a.. Open Source Development With CVS by Karl Franz Fogel http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1576104907/o/qid=966896459/sr=8-1/ref =aps_sr_b_1_3/104-7921921-8428720 b.. Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565925823/o/qid=966896459/sr=8-2/ref =aps_sr_b_1_4/104-7921921-8428720 c.. The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary by Eric S. Raymond http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565927249/o/qid=966896459/sr=8-3/ref =aps_sr_b_1_5/104-7921921-8428720 d.. Open Source: The Unauthorized White Papers by Donald K. Rosenberg, Ph.D., MBA http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764546600/o/qid=969994184/sr=8-1/ref =aps_sr_b_1_3/102-5401430-6131346 e.. Free for All: How Linux and the Free Software Movement Undercut the High-tech Titans by Peter Wayner http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0066620503/qid=969994328/sr=1-4/102-5 401430-6131346 Jeff Witt - Original Message - From: "Greg London" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "license discuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 7:57 AM Subject: Re: books about free software & open source movement > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > Who can tell me which books about free software movement > > and open source movement are popular in America, or worth > > reading for those who are interested in these movements? > > Could you list about five books? Thanks. > > I can tell you 1 offhand. "Open Sources" by O'Reilly. > Greg > -- > license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 > -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: click, click, boom
On Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 10:55:36AM -0400, Greg London wrote: > With 26 licenses, some of them extremely long, > most people will not read all of them,nor understand > the implications of them. I skipped over to the > OSD, read that, and assumed that I could pick > any approved license, and the OSD would be enforced. The OSI is not here to do your legal footwork for you. It _is_ here to provide some guidelines for authors of licenses, and to enforce those guidelines via an approval process. I wouldn't normally say something like this, but I think it is warranted: You are very deeply confused and undereducated about software licensing in general, and are not bringing up anything that people on this list aren't already aware of. On the contrary, you're mixing terms and getting a few people upset. I don't fault you for this (yet), but _please_ do a little outside research on this whole subject and I think you'll find answers to a lot of your questions. I think that everyone is more than happy to debate the intricasies of the OSD, and particulars of certain licenses, but there is a certain minimum level of legal understanding and background knowledge that is required. Blanket, unresearched statements don't contribute much. -drew -- M. Drew Streib <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | http://dtype.org/ FSG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>| Linux International <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> freedb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>| SourceForge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> PGP signature
Re: books about free software & open source movement
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Who can tell me which books about free software movement > and open source movement are popular in America, or worth > reading for those who are interested in these movements? > Could you list about five books? Thanks. I can tell you 1 offhand. "Open Sources" by O'Reilly. Greg -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: click, click, boom
Rick Moen wrote: > > begin Greg London quotation: > > > If someone puts out a bunch of source code under the MIT license, and > > the distro is OSI certifiable, there is nothing to prevent someone > > else from redistributing it in binary form only. Their only "penalty" > > is that they lose OSI certification. > > _Licences_ are OSD-certified. Software is open-source or not, in > accordance with its nature (including but not limited to licensing). http://www.opensource.org/docs/certification_mark.html "The OSI Certified mark applies to software, not to licenses. " Licenses can be "approved" by OSI, but that does not guarantee certification on a piece of software. > Do you have a point, or are you simply ruminating on the vagaries of > power and influence? point (1) it is not clear by the OSI website that there is a distinction between approved licenses and certified software. You confused the two above yourself. someone who has a program they wish to license could come to teh OSI website, do a quick readthrough, and come away with the understanding that an approved license will guarantee the OSD is legally enforced in the license. With 26 licenses, some of them extremely long, most people will not read all of them,nor understand the implications of them. I skipped over to the OSD, read that, and assumed that I could pick any approved license, and the OSD would be enforced. point (2) This is at the root of the whole "yet another public license" discussion. OSI has little incentive to approve YAPL, since OSI's only contribution to open source is through it's certification of software. Approval of another license is independent of software certification. programmers have little incentive to get OSI certification, because it does little measurable for them. The only thing that is concrete for the developer is the wording of the license. Therefore you get all these developers trying to get a slightly modified version of a license approved. A developer submits a license to OSI and says "none of teh currently approved licenses do exactly what I want." OSI (or at least a number of people on this list) respond "you should just use an already existing license and get certified" Developers want certification, but they also know enough that they want a legal license that gives them what they want. OSI will certify software under the MIT license, which effectively means that OSI will certify software licensed in such a way to give away all rights. So it is no surprise that OSI isn't too concerned about YAPL that splits some fine hairs between this right and that right. OSI will certify something that licenses away all rights. Why worry about whether or not you can distribute changes in the form of patches? The MIT license says you can do ANYTHING. Greg -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
OSI Forums test-site - Please review & comment
Hello y'all. I have some time on my hands today so I thought I'd solicit some feedback for the *beta* forums site I've setup for OSI that Russell had mentioned to the list this past weekend. *Its only BETA to test if we all like the mechanism. The idea is to see if: 1) It keeps comments focused on the topic at hand; discussion of the proposed license being reviewed, 2) it provides a nice separate space specifically for discussion of licenses. The 'stories' will be moderated so the only things posted will be licenses up for review. 3) blah blah blah DO NOT USE YOUR NORMAL EVERYDAY PASSWORDS! I do not want them on this beta site MAKE UP SOMETHING NEW & DISPOSABLE. Thanks. Here it is http://142.166.33.110 Please kick the tires a bit, but focus on the forums mechanism since most else there has been ignored awaiting approval or disapproval of the concept use. There are some options available to be changed: moderation of comments (currently 'no moderation'), allow anonymous posting (currently 'no'). *This is not the permanent home for it. *It's made with PHP-Nuke. Please post your comments/feedback there. After all, that's what we're testing. Cheers, -- Steve Mallett | Just Stable, Open-Source Apps http://OpenSourceDirectory.org | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project-Listing Maintenance In A Can: http://trovesendtwo.sf.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aug 15th/01, I have nothing to do with license approval.) "Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good." -- Mohandas Gandhi -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
books about free software & open source movement
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Re: YAPL is bad (was: Re: Backlog assistance?)
En réponse à Rick Moen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > begin Steve Lhomme quotation: > > > Once again, as I wrote : > > "Is the OSI there to judge what a license is worth ? > > Ah, I love polemical rhetorical questions! Thanks for the > contribution > to my collection. > > In the meantime, since you say your concerns are entirely theoretical, > and that you lack time to research specifics, we seem to have from you > no further substantive matters for discussion. En réponse à "Karsten M. Self" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > "Is the OSI there to judge what a license is worth ? If so they > should > > divide the OSI in 2 parts : the neutral/approval part, and the > > political/judging part... I think most people need the 1st part to > > work or use." > > The OSI should allocate its resources wisely. As such, it should > ensure > that: > > - Newly proposed licenses aren't proposed lightly. > - Newly proposed licenses don't overly duplicate existing licenses. > - Newly proposed licenses topcally meet the OSD requirements for > deeper consideration. > > This does call for a acertain discriminating role in judging > applications. > > I believe Rick has stated the situation clearly: you have not > demonstrated your case, and appear to have no practical concerns. I'd > suggest you mediate silently until the situation has changed. > > Peace. OK, since you consider the theoretical aspect of the discussing pointless/useless/whatever. Here is my practical case for your pragmatic minds : I'm working (not alone) on a derivation of the QPL license in order to make it GPL compatible (and also a few minor changes). Maybe for you it's not a big change, but for me it IS. As it's "overly duplicate existing licenses" it would probably not qualify for the OSD to check it... But is the OSD here to decide for the developpers what are the license that "deserve" to be compliant ? If after 6 months of being published a license doesn't appear in the list, people will consider that it's not compliant and will be reluctant to work on something that might not be "open-source enough". Do you think that's fair to newcomers ? Do you think that encourage the growth of the Open-Source community ? Do you think it makes evolution possible (AFAIK evolution is different from revolution because it's made of small changes here and there) ? BTW Rick, was that an invitation to leave this list (my english is average) ? Why didn't you answer my concern (which IMHO makes sense) instead ? -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: click, click, boom
On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Rick Moen wrote: > The DFSG (and thus the OSD) were indeed abstracted out from several > popular licences (if I remember accounts by Bruce P.). As adopted by I'd like to restate this. Prior to the formation of the OSI, the free software community was an open, friendly place oriented towards sharing and being friendly. The founders of the OSI were from that community, and were trying to foster that community in new ways. While nitpicking the particulars of the OSD and the OSI is a reasonable pastime amongst perfectionists, it must also be kept in mind that the OSD is an attempt to encapsulate an idea, that sharing is good, in a friendly and open manner. The intent was never, as far as I can reckon, to create an ironclad definition that could be upheld in courts without the participation of the community; I think the intent was always to make it clear to the reader what the idea behind open source was. Simply, the BSD/MIT license is approved because it adequately encapsulates the idea behind open source. Given that, there can be no argument whether the BSD/MIT license belongs - if the OSD suggests that it doesn't (and this is Greg's interpretation but quite a few people disagree with him), then throw the OSD out, because the license, better than the definition, encapsulates the ideas behind open source. -- Matthew Weigel Research Systems Programmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] ne [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Section 2 source distribution terms (was Re: GPL vs APSL (was:YAPL is bad))
On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Russell Nelson wrote: > Of course, a big problem with the OSD is that it talks about legal > requirements, and yet was not touched by a lawyer before being cast > into stone. Any kind of extensive rewrite probably ought to be done > by people with actual experience with the law, as opposed to > dilettantes like you and I. IMO, either rewrite it trying to be more clear, or rewrite it trying to cover all of the bases legally. Again, IMO, writing it to be more clear, and relying upon the common sense of the OSI, seems reasonable. -- Matthew Weigel Research Systems Programmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] ne [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
