Sean, I am with a public policy institution in Washington that is publishing a piece on open source. Who do we talk to get permission to reprint the chart?
Ken Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Sean Doherty [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 11:57 AM To: Karsten M. Self; license ML Subject: RE: Article on open-source licenses (and the OSI) Karsten, I don't know if my "reply to all" will go to the license list. But, you're free to post this as a follow up to your comments. I have been out of the legal world for too long and I agree that my analysis is sloppy. And, I have some factual errors to correct as well. All in all, I came up short for the magazine and its readership. I would like to thank you for taking the time to comment on the article. I appreciate it and I am working to post corrections. Although I can't correct sloppy analysis, I can correct the reference to the OSI. I will not rely on the OSI's lack of clarity on the matter. Your comments and the other comments I have received on the article will make future endeavors in this area and in all my areas better. I've learned a lot from the open source community in the last few days - your interest to dialogue and educate is appreciated and does not go on deaf ears here or with Network Computing Magazine in general. - sean Sean Doherty Technology Editor Network Computing http://www.networkcomputing.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] 315-443-2577 -> -----Original Message----- -> From: Karsten M. Self [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] -> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 6:44 AM -> To: license ML -> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -> Subject: Re: Article on open-source licenses (and the OSI) -> -> -> on Tue, Oct 30, 2001 at 10:54:54AM +0100, Steve Lhomme -> ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: -> > http://www.networkcomputing.com/1222/1222ws1.html -> > -> > A very good sum up of the current (blurry) situation on licenses. -> (especially -> > for developers getting lost) -> -> Interesting. I'm not sure I'd call it very good. For an author with a -> JD, some of the legal analysis is sloppy, as are distinctions drawn -> among various licenses. I really should polish the bit I've got along -> these lines. -> -> -> -> Picking nits as we go along.... -> -> Copyright is one of several legal means used to control rights to -> software -- patents, trademark, and trade secret are other forms of IP, -> contract law, particularly the apparently dead UCITA, is another. Worth -> mentioning. Copyright itself offers relatively thin protections. -> -> The linguistic nuances of proprietary, commercial, and open source are -> handled appropriately. It's probably worth mentioning that a large -> portion of the community lab led as "open source" distinctly prefers -> "free software". -> -> The term "larceny" is misused regards copyright, as it refers to a -> taking. The term preferred by Nimmer is misappropriation (most -> memorable when he suggests that copyright law is in danger of becoming a -> general prohibition of misappropriation). The copyright owner isn't -> deprived of property, the copyright pirate benefits unlawfully from use -> of same. -> -> The "everyone benefits" comment concerning BSD/MIT licensing sounds -> distinctly as if someone's been chatting with Brett Glass, and is -> inaccurate to boot. It's not clear what Sean means by "enterprise -> developers", and the term is as vague as "weaponized anthrax" (are we -> referring to spore size or drug resistance, what precautions should be -> taken?) that it should be disaggregated to specific instances of types -> of use. -> -> The discussion of OSI certification is again unclear and IMO misleading, -> perhaps reflection a lack of clarity on the part of the OSI. -> Specifically: -> -> Although the OSI promotes the free redistribution of software with -> access to both source and compiled code, it does not discriminate -> against proprietary ventures. OSI-approved licenses include BSD, GPL -> and X11, and the IPL (IBM Public License), the MPL (Mozilla Public -> License), SCSL (Sun Community Source License) and APSL (Apple Public -> Source License). -> -> ...which appears to indicate that OSI Open Source Certified might -> include software incorporating, say, BSD licensed code, but no longer -> freely distributably in some derivative version. This doesn't match my -> understanding, recent discussion in this list, statements by Russ -> Nelson, and specifically sections 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 of the OSD. This -> paragraph is misleading and wrong. -> -> The discussion of licensing compatibility is welcomed. I hammer this -> issue as much as possible. I think it's emphasized by the problems the -> author has in dealing with even single license issues above. The Galeon -> issue is one I'd only recently become aware of myself (and it's my -> favorite browser to boot, I should pay more attention). -> -> The suggestion that the OSI focus on licensing conflicts is interesting, -> but, given experience, hopelessly optimistic. Education on the issues -> is one thing, actively tangling in disputes quite another, from an -> organizational, operational, and resources standpoint. -> -> The forking discussion is muddled, and confounds issues of license scope -> and forking propensity. I still think two of the best presentations of -> this issue are in Bob Young's _Under the Radar_ and Don Rosenberg's -> resources at Stromian Technologies. There's a chart somewhere in his -> essays showing propensity to fork across a range of license which I -> can't find, but the flowchart diagrams in the forking discussion here -> are good for showing the mechanics involved: -> -> http://www.stromian.com/Public_Licenses.html -> -> Short argument: forking allows different development paths to be tried. -> The GPL (or other copyleft) ensures that there's never a legal -> impediment to re-merging a fork downstream, the lesson of BSD Unix was -> that the licensing lead to a proliferation of legally incompatible -> software (though the upside was a widespread use of the Unix/POSIX -> standard). Most forks are short lived -- they're expensive to maintain, -> split the community, and with free software, profit incentives to -> maintain a fork are are weak. Some functional forks propogate, but -> these are rare, emacs/xemacs being the notable exception proving the -> rule. -> -> I find the treatment of the "Is it Legal" section similarly muddled. -> Eben Moglen's descriptions of why the GPL is a license, not a contract, -> and the fallback to copyright law, would be helpful. -> -> -> -> I'm being nitpicky (it's late, I'm tired). I've seen far worse -> articles. This one's middlin'. I wouldn't add it to my whitepaper -> collection though, it needs some straightening up. -> -> Peace. -> -> -- -> Karsten M. Self <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ -> What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Home of the brave -> http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free -> Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org -> Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html -> -- 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
