I am a member of the leadership group for an open source project that produces ePortfolio software for education institutions. This project and a few others are leading the way for a movement in higher education toward adoption of open source software. The projects all have independent leadership with similar objectives and many of the same people are involved in multiple projects.
Our project (the Open Source Portfolio Initiative - OSPI) created a license called the OSPI License 1.0 (http://www.theospi.org/modules/cjaycontent/index.php?id=8) based on the Jabber license. We submitted the license for OSI certification last year and have recently received advice that we collaborate with Jabber to establish a common license rather than two that only really differ because the project name is embedded in the license. We are now re-evaluating our licensing strategy and as we have, we recognize great value in adopting a common license among the dozen or so similar projects all creating software for education institutions. We also recognize that OSI certification lends credibility and the review process will produce a license with the benefit of OSI's collective knowledge and experience. My question, finally, is what advice can anyone on this list offer with regard to: 1. Choosing a license such as OSL 2.0 or Academic Free License 2.0 VS. creating a license of our own or adopting one such as the Sakai license (below) among as many of our projects as possible. 2. Our objectives are to foster commercial involvement in these projects, develop a vital community of users and contributors, and make adoption easy for schools that would use the software and/or contribute to it. How does a copyleft provision either help or hurt these objectives? 3. How does the length of the license impact the project? My personal observation is that the shorter licenses create ambiguity, the longer ones generally get confusing, and there seems to be some middle ground (like the OSL 2.0) that strike a good balance. Is anyone aware of a very simple license causing problems because it wasn't clear enough? How about a longer license inhibiting use because it was too complex for many people to understand? Each of the initiatives I've been talking about has a license, some have copyleft provisions, others do not, and they vary significantly in how much detail the license provides. Also, 3 projects have already consolidated under the Sakai license. A few examples: OSPI http://www.theospi.org/modules/cjaycontent/index.php?id=8 Sakai http://www.sakaiproject.org/license.html uPortal http://mis105.mis.udel.edu/ja-sig/uportal/license.html Thanks for any help, Chris Coppola -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
