License Committee Report for August 2007

Tue Sep 4 21:56:23 UTC 2007

I'm the chair of the license approval committee. This is my report
for the current set of licenses under discussion.
Title: Open Source Hardware License 
Submission: 
 http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:12911:200707:jmkojcilhopeddgknmdj
Revised here:
 http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:12941:200707:jmkojcilhopeddgknmdj
License: In the submission
Comments: No consensus on license-discuss that OSI should be in the
 business of Open Source Hardware.
Recommend: Discussion has stalled. The board needs to direct license
 discuss -- is this a direction the organization should move in?
--
Title: GNU General Public License v3 (GPLv3)
Submission:
 http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:13303:200708:caifnpoiechppjdcppgo
License:
 http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
Comments:
 Luis Villa says "my own casual review suggests that the license is
 OSD-compliant". Andy Wilson says "the GPLv3 and LGPLv3 should be
 approved, since they do, IMO, meet the OSD. dalibor topic says "OSD
 Compliant. Both of them." Chris DiBona says "while approval of the
 lgpl and gpl versions 3 is fine, it should be explicitly stated that
 any amendments must be put through this process for them to be
 considered OSI approved." Larry Rosen says "GPLv3 is obviously
 OSD-compliant." Rich Moen says "what you say is abundantly
 obvious," Matthew Flaschen says "it is OSD-compliant." Chris
 Travers, after changing his mind back and forth twice, was unable to
 convince anybody else that the GPLv3 doesn't comply with the OSD. 
 Alexander Terekhov is sure that the GPLv3 is a contract, not a
 license, but ended up in John Cowan's and Rich Moen's killfiles.
Recommend: approval, placement in Popular category as the successor to
 the GPLv2.
--
We need to be clear about what we want to do with the SimPL. We had
originally thought it incompatible with the GPLv2 because although,
the license was revised for GPLv2 compatibility, the License: url had
not been modified. It is in fact compatible with the GPLv2. Since
that was our sole objection, the obvious course is to approve it and
place it in Redundant.
Title: Simple Public License (SimPL):
Submission: 
 http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:sss:12796:200705:ljlcebgacpjodogfcegi
Revised here:
 http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:msn:12796:ljlcebgacpjodogfcegi
License: http://www.law.washington.edu/CASRIP/License/SimplePublicLicense.html
Comments: Intended to be a simplified GPL. DiBona suggests that the
 GPL is well understood and this license is not useful.
Recommend: approval, placement in Redundant category.
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Title: Non-Profit OSL 3.0
Submission: 
 http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:13299:200708:beaackkhhfafamkcjcdf
License: http://www.rosenlaw.com/NOSL3.0.htm 
Diffs from OSL 3.0:
 http://www.rosenlaw.com/NOSL3.0-red.htm
Comments: Compatible with the OSL 3.0. Cowan and Swiger both
 recommend approval.
Recommend: Approval, placement in same category as OSL 3.0.
David Woolley
(http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:13305:200708:beaackkhhfafamkcjcdf)
says it's a discrimination against a field of endeavour. My response
is that it's a discrimination against a type of endeavour not a
specific endeavour, it's one that gives additional freedoms (err on
the side of freedom), and the result of the discrimination is to
compel use of a different, OSI approved, Open Source license.
Precedent allows this kind of discrimination, since worse comes to
worst, you have to distribute under an approved Open Source license.
-- 
--my blog is at http://blog.russnelson.com | People have strong opinions
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