-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday 31 August 2007 14:04, jtd wrote: > [snip] > No. Because OSI approved licences can mean anything eg. CDDL and a > wierdo Nokia licence. Free in their own jails. > And OSI is deliberating the approval of some M$ licence which is > anything but open. Hmmm. No i am sure that the two have nothing in > common and only the customers best interests are in consideration as > customers are craving for the crack that they are living on and it is > sooo cruel to deny them their fix.
Yes, the OSI doesn't necessarily view things exactly as FSF does. IMO that's no reason to write off the OSD (Open Source Definition, of which they are the stewards), as without value. As for the CDDL (I don't know which Nokia licence you are referring to), it is recognised as a free software licence incompatible with the GPL by FSF, so I see no issues with OSI approval: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html/view?searchterm=cddl The function of the OSI is to accept each licence that is submitted for approval. Whether the licence actually gets approved or not is up to the OSI Licence Committee, which usually bases its decision on public discussion in an open forum (licence-discuss mailing list). There is no way the OSI can turn around to MS and say, ``yeah, your licence meets the OSD, but you're MS, so, er, we're not considering it at all, sucks be to you.'' -- impartiality and openness are the price you pay for stewardship. And if you've been following the licence-discuss mailing list (as I have), you will see that the outcome in the case of the MS-CL and MS-PL isn't clear-cut at all. There are strong arguments both for and against approval of the licences, with most of the discussion going into such abstract legal concepts that I usually just fall asleep reading the mails ;) The question really is whether accepting one (or both) MS licences will help or harm FOSS in the long term, and, once my knee-jerk reaction (NO! :) is completed, I for one don't really have an answer to that question. The OSI is doing its best in a rapidly-changing world (who would have thought even 2 years ago that MS would be submitting licences for OSI approval?), and there are bound to be groups of people whose world-view diverges significantly from theirs. You can call them a bunch of inconsequential jerks, and move on, or you can appreciate the skill with which they are striving to balance hundreds of conflicting interests to ensure that neither the FLOSS community nor corporates lose out in the battles that are being played out every day in courts, board rooms, government offices, educational institutions and homes. The choice is yours. Finally, as Eben Moglen said, have no illusions -- we are in a war, and it will be fought to the finish. $disclaimer[0]: I am on the board of OSI. $disclaimer[1]: Not speaking for the OSI. Regards, - -- Raju - -- Raj Mathur [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://kandalaya.org/ Freedom in Technology & Software || September 2007 || http://freed.in/ GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid.in/ || It is the mind that moves -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFG1+WVyWjQ78xo0X8RAiN4AJ9A1iMhbiTeMUC0Id6vIam5HbVt5wCeId0O z5tPaAAqk4XsQKS99E9PqJQ= =17QP -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
