OSI, licenses, MPL

[Wes Bethel, R3vis Corporation]

In defence of OSI, it may be that there isn't a real mechanism in place to 
handle what is probably a growing flood of requests for license approval. I 

related, one other reader pointed out the desire of OSI to reasonably 
contain the number of, and encourage the use of the 
"pre-approved" licenses. i have to agree with him.

the list of pre-approved licenses seems to vary widely in terms of 
general vs. specific use. for example, L/GPL are very general. on the
other hand, MPL has a lot of Netscape-centric language that *must be
changed* prior to it's use for a project other than Mozilla. do those
changes constitute a new license? 

in the specific case of using MPL for a new open source project, which 
is currently in my crosshairs, a better solution might be an MPL 1.2
that preserves the core of MPL, but which provides more "fill in these
blanks" to allow cusomization of the license to a specific project.

regards,
wes
//\/\\//\\//\\/\//\\/\\//\\//\\/\\/\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\/\\//\\//\\//\\
Wes Bethel, R3vis Corporation
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  - http://www.r3vis.com/
Phone: 415-898-0814  FAX: 415-898-2814
//\/\\//\\//\\/\//\\/\\//\\//\\/\\/\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\/\\//\\//\\//\\

Re: License Approval Process

[Wes Bethel, R3vis Corporation]

  +  Join the club, Scott.  I submitted a license months ago and haven't 
  +  heard a thing.  Others have had similar experiences as well.  In 
  +  fact, I don't think any new licenses have been approved under the 
  +  certification program.

my experience has been the same, with the addition that a second
note was sent directly to ESR, along with dates of initial release
for the open source project. there has been absolutely no response 
whatsoever.

a thought: what if, after a careful and honestly critical review of
the OSI terms of use, you decide that your license meets the criteria,
you were go ahead and use the OSI mark? would you be in violation
of the letter of the law? in other words, does one need a "yes you may
use the mark" from OSI prior to use? will they enforce it?
(i've not read the opensource.org web pages in the past few weeks,
and don't recall specifics).

in other words, let's assume that you have a clean license and a pure
heart ;-), will some proactive use of the OSI mark cause them to
wake up and fulfill the obligation they have incurred, but are
currently not fulfilling, or will the OSI mark become meaningless
(or has it become meaningless) because OSI doesn't function?

1/2 a ;-)

wes
//\/\\//\\//\\/\//\\/\\//\\//\\/\\/\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\/\\//\\//\\//\\
Wes Bethel, R3vis Corporation
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  - http://www.r3vis.com/
Phone: 415-898-0814  FAX: 415-898-2814
//\/\\//\\//\\/\//\\/\\//\\//\\/\\/\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\/\\//\\//\\//\\