Re: OSI affiliation
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 06:40:08PM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
Dear project members,
as you might have heard post-FOSDEM, the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
is opening up to an affiliate membership structure [1,2]. As I've
already mentioned in [3], representatives of OSI have approached me to
know if Debian is interested into joining. I'd like to discuss with you
such a possibility.
Thanks to anyone who has given feedback on this matter, both here on
list and in private mail. With the help of your feedback, I've now
decided to go ahead and request OSI affiliation on behalf of Debian.
A few comments on the feedback I've got:
- most of it is in favor of going forward
- some of the concerns are based on past inactivity by OSI - I'm firmly
convinced this has already changed; if it will turn out not to be the
case we will quit
- I don't think that Debian reputation will be tarnished by the fact
that OSI has approved in the past licenses we don't consider Free
(1) I agree with those who commented on how joining an organization
doesn't mean we will always will be in agreement with *all* the
organization does; we share objectives but we keep a separate
identity and we will remain a separate reputable body that decides
on the Free-ness of FOSS licenses
(2) I will mention the set of licenses we consider questionable and
ask for action on them (e.g. marking them as not recommended)
- OSI has $flaw - ultimately, I think it is in Debian spirit to join
something that we consider useful even if it is not perfect, and work
toward fixing its bugs
Obviously, I'll need some help :-) I didn't think of proposing a press
release about us joining OSI in the beginning. But Russ' idea of taking
that chance to clarify that we will maintain a different judgement on
Free licenses sounds like a good idea. Any volunteer to help me out
drafting such an announcement?
Similarly --- even though I don't know yet what the timing will be ---
we will need project liaisons with OSI. I'll be happy to cover it up in
the beginning (given I've proposed this/dogfooding), but I'll be even
happier to pass it over to someone I trust and who is interested in
joining OSI activities on behalf of Debian.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o .
Maître de conférences .. http://upsilon.cc/zack .. . . o
Debian Project Leader... @zack on identi.ca ...o o o
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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Re: OSI affiliation
Jose Luis Rivas ghost...@debian.org On 02/21/2012 12:32 PM, Russ Allbery wrote: We would need to start by identifying the licenses that we care enough about to demand that they be purged. I suspect that list may be of zero size, mostly on the care enough about front. This is what I asked for before, but what MJ Ray gave me was just one license and Josselin didn't answered. And MJ didn't saw a reason for making a list. I don't feel that's accurate. The request was for a list with the OSI-approved licenses that [Josselin] call non-free? and I gave you about 30 licences that OSI had approved unilaterally. When pushed by Phil Hands for which ones of those were in debian non-free, I mentioned the only one that I know about. Feel free to search the archive to see if the others are in there somewhere. (I did the task a few years ago... now you can have a try. Might be easier with DEP-5.) But I still feel this is missing the point: the certification scheme is broken in at least three ways and misapprovals is maybe the least serious. The others are the advocate-led process and the use of a monopoly right. I'm not Josselin but I'd call anything on the OSI list that the FSF has explicitly rejected non-free. As of OSI's 2009 list, that was: NASA Open Source Agreement Reciprocal Public License Sybase Open Watcom Public License There's a lot of there must be a purge of licenses arguments, but which ones? Absolutely: Apple Public Source Licence; Should: NASAOSA, RPL, SOWPL above; Better: anything on the OSI list which is not on FSF lists - maybe move these to a discouraged list; Ideal: anything on the OSI list which is not in debian main - maybe move these to a discouraged-and-unpopular list. But as others note, I think that OSI's no-longer-accurate name, their limited goals and broken processes are also really grave problems which should be addressed before the debian project joins and so gives its stamp of approval. For now, it would be better to see just some group of interested debian developers that would like to advise OSI. Maybe that could be as delegates from debian to OSI, if the DPL is willing? Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1s0a4w-0007t9...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
David Weinehall t...@debian.org On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 01:08:28PM +, Gervase Markham wrote: - It would be difficult to get wide enough agreement on exactly which licenses were bad enough to be revoked. This might be tricky, agreed. Lucky for them Debian has got a pretty solid good/bad list already. We can even offer it free of charge, free to modify, free to use anyway they please, free to redistribute, free for whatever purpose they want. ;) Could you send me a copy of the solid list, please? I'd like to replace the junk I used to start http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/ ;-) Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1s0af1-0007xm...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
On 13/02/12 17:40, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: Although I'd like to hear your comments before deciding, my advice is to accept the invitation and have Debian join OSI. My rationale for that is twofold: Mozilla is becoming an OSI affiliate, and I am Mozilla's representative to the OSI. I would love to see Debian involved in a similar way, because I think that, while perhaps the split between the two positions in the community will never be completely repaired, having Debian involved in OSI will keep the two sides closer together than not having Debian involved in OSI. For better or worse, OSI's list of licenses is encoded in lots of policies and legislation around the world. It is in the interests of supporters of software freedom that they make sure that list is well curated. If you read the OSI discussion lists, you'll certainly find senior figures in that movement regretting previous decisions, e.g. about particular license approvals. Having groups like Debian involved seems to me that it will reduce the likelihood of more of that happening in the future. Gerv -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jhvpni$l86$1...@dough.gmane.org
Re: OSI affiliation
On Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:56:02 +, Gervase Markham gerv-gm...@gerv.net wrote: ... If you read the OSI discussion lists, you'll certainly find senior figures in that movement regretting previous decisions, e.g. about particular license approvals. Having groups like Debian involved seems to me that it will reduce the likelihood of more of that happening in the future. If they regret them, then they should revoke the bogus approvals. They presumably don't want to look foolish by doing that, but the foolishness is all too plain already, and they're doing ongoing damage by not rectifying the situation. Clearly neither the FSF nor we will be deciding to now approve licenses that even people in OSI agree should never have been approved, so if some sort of agreement between all is to be achieved, in those particular cases it will require movement from OSI. I presume if we affiliate, that we'll see a press release from OSI along the lines of: Debian gives stamp of approval to OSI which if anything will reduce any pressure they feel to repent past sins. If senior figures have not managed to swing that argument so far, I don't see that adding another voice to the committee that's failing to make a useful decision will suddenly precipitate one. Cheers, Phil. -- |)| Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]http://www.hands.com/ |-| HANDS.COM Ltd.http://www.uk.debian.org/ |(| 10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London E18 1NE ENGLAND pgp2R5OVg1eU3.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OSI affiliation
On 21/02/12 10:08, MJ Ray wrote: Words are cheap. When will OSI revoke some of the bloopers? Philip also made the same point. You'd need to ask them. I can speculate wildly: - They currently have no process for revocation of status; - Most of the bad ones are hardly used at all, making it a moot point practically; - It sets a bad precedent; organizations which have policies about using only OSI-approved software may have to incur significant cost and inconvenience; - It would be difficult to get wide enough agreement on exactly which licenses were bad enough to be revoked. But as I said, you should ask them. If Debian wants to make such revocations a condition of affiliation, it would help, when saying so, to list the licenses you'd like to see the status of revoked, with clear arguments as to why they don't meet the OSI definition. Gerv -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f43974c.5020...@gerv.net
Re: OSI affiliation
On Feb 21, 2012, at 12:29, Philip Hands wrote: On Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:56:02 +, Gervase Markham gerv-gm...@gerv.net wrote: ... If you read the OSI discussion lists, you'll certainly find senior figures in that movement regretting previous decisions, e.g. about particular license approvals. Having groups like Debian involved seems to me that it will reduce the likelihood of more of that happening in the future. If they regret them, then they should revoke the bogus approvals. snip I presume if we affiliate, that we'll see a press release from OSI along the lines of: Debian gives stamp of approval to OSI which if anything will reduce any pressure they feel to repent past sins. I think there is room to join OSI as an observer of some kind and explicitly say to them that they don't get to use a Debian stamp of approval in their marketing material. Or make joining OSI conditional upon some sort of purge of icky licenses on their side. This might give Debian some insight and influence on their process without having to condone previous decisions. Regards, Jeremiah -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/ad57f2ae-1c87-432a-a4ed-0a9a9f3af...@jeremiahfoster.com
Re: OSI affiliation
Jeremiah Foster jerem...@jeremiahfoster.com writes: I think there is room to join OSI as an observer of some kind and explicitly say to them that they don't get to use a Debian stamp of approval in their marketing material. Yes, this. I think it's fine, and even a good idea, for Debian to join closely related projects with which we share some common goals even if we don't agree with everything that project says, as long as we make that publicly clear. There's still room to cooperate and to steer the direction of the other organization hopefully closer towards our project's goals. I'm a member of the FSF, but I don't use copyleft for any of my software and I think the GFDL is a poorly-written license. I don't feel like I have to agree with everything they do in order to want to support the organization. Or make joining OSI conditional upon some sort of purge of icky licenses on their side. We would need to start by identifying the licenses that we care enough about to demand that they be purged. I suspect that list may be of zero size, mostly on the care enough about front. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87wr7grugj@windlord.stanford.edu
Re: OSI affiliation
On 02/21/2012 12:32 PM, Russ Allbery wrote: Or make joining OSI conditional upon some sort of purge of icky licenses on their side. We would need to start by identifying the licenses that we care enough about to demand that they be purged. I suspect that list may be of zero size, mostly on the care enough about front. This is what I asked for before, but what MJ Ray gave me was just one license and Josselin didn't answered. And MJ didn't saw a reason for making a list. There's a lot of there must be a purge of licenses arguments, but which ones? -- Jose Luis Rivas - GPG: 0x7C4DF50D / 0xCACAB118 The Debian Project Developer -- http://ghostbar.ath.cx Barquisimeto, Venezuela signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OSI affiliation
Jose Luis Rivas ghost...@debian.org writes: This is what I asked for before, but what MJ Ray gave me was just one license and Josselin didn't answered. And MJ didn't saw a reason for making a list. There's a lot of there must be a purge of licenses arguments, but which ones? Yes, I agree. If we have concrete issues with the approved licenses, then we should bring them up. Now would be a good time, since we've been invited to join and OSI is therefore going to be receptive to our issues. If it's just the Apple license, I would question whether our disagreement over that license is important enough to be a blocker for us taking on an advisory role. Most of MJ's objections seemed to me to be on different grounds than the specific license approvals. I do think we should, if we join, state publicly (in whatever press release we generate announcing our membership) that Debian is not adopting the OSI license review process for Debian and that Debian will continue to conduct its own license review as we do now, and that we continue to disagree with OSI in some areas on what licenses should be considered free. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87ipj0rsv7@windlord.stanford.edu
Re: OSI affiliation
On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 01:08:28PM +, Gervase Markham wrote: On 21/02/12 10:08, MJ Ray wrote: Words are cheap. When will OSI revoke some of the bloopers? Philip also made the same point. You'd need to ask them. I can speculate wildly: - They currently have no process for revocation of status; - Most of the bad ones are hardly used at all, making it a moot point practically; - It sets a bad precedent; organizations which have policies about using only OSI-approved software may have to incur significant cost and inconvenience; A way to solve these three issues, and solve the license proliferation issue while at it, might be to start from scratch. Since we've have become concerned about the wild proliferation of similar licenses, we have decided to change the way we work. We have begun work on categorising the different types of licenses we find acceptable, and have described their strengths and weaknesses here list of the base licenses, such as GPL, MIT, BSD, etc. Other licenses that are deemed equivalent with these licenses will put on a second list; while these licenses too are recognised as OSI-approved, we do not recommend using them for newly written software, and if possible would prefer to see their use be replaced with one of the endorsed, perhaps? ones. While reworking the list we will also do review work of the entries already in the list; if we find details we might have missed out on earlier, we will foo bar The previous list of OSI-approved licenses is still available here, but once work on our new list finished it will be marked as obsolete. And then launch this as OSI-approved v2. All this would obviously rely on such license reviews actually taking place, rather than just rubber stamping. - It would be difficult to get wide enough agreement on exactly which licenses were bad enough to be revoked. This might be tricky, agreed. Lucky for them Debian has got a pretty solid good/bad list already. We can even offer it free of charge, free to modify, free to use anyway they please, free to redistribute, free for whatever purpose they want. ;) Regards: David Weinehall -- /) David Weinehall t...@debian.org /) Rime on my window (\ // ~ // Diamond-white roses of fire // \) http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/(/ Beautiful hoar-frost (/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120221192415.gb17...@suiko.acc.umu.se
Re: OSI affiliation
Le Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 09:36:28AM -0800, Russ Allbery a écrit : I do think we should, if we join, state publicly (in whatever press release we generate announcing our membership) that Debian is not adopting the OSI license review process for Debian and that Debian will continue to conduct its own license review as we do now, and that we continue to disagree with OSI in some areas on what licenses should be considered free. I think that it is an important clarification to make. Thanks to this clarification, I would like to recommend that, in case the OSI has already discussed a license, this work is taken into account when making a review on debian-legal. The OSI has recently opened public mailing lists and a bug tracker, that will help a lot to avoid duplicating work when it is descriptive or comparative. http://projects.opensource.org/redmine/projects/licensing http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/ http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/ Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120222010910.gd1...@falafel.plessy.net
Re: OSI affiliation
On 02/22/2012 02:09 AM, Charles Plessy wrote: Le Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 09:36:28AM -0800, Russ Allbery a écrit : I do think we should, if we join, state publicly (in whatever press release we generate announcing our membership) that Debian is not adopting the OSI license review process for Debian and that Debian will continue to conduct its own license review as we do now, and that we continue to disagree with OSI in some areas on what licenses should be considered free. I think that it is an important clarification to make. Thanks to this clarification, I would like to recommend that, in case the OSI has already discussed a license, this work is taken into account when making a review on debian-legal. The OSI has recently opened public mailing lists and a bug tracker, that will help a lot to avoid duplicating work when it is descriptive or comparative. Not sure why you think anything needs to be reviewed on debian-legal as it is just a list of random people commenting on random legal issues and has no direct say whatsoever about any legal or other issue in Debian... Cheers Luk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f44895b.2080...@debian.org
Re: OSI affiliation
Jose Luis Rivas ghost...@debian.org On 02/17/2012 06:11 PM, MJ Ray wrote: http://people.debian.org/~mjr/legal/fsf-osi-list-diff.txt shows the ones where OSI and FSF disagree, but what's the point of knowing which are involved? Basically, OSI has aided proliferation. The point of my question is to give _context_. Which of the list are non-free and as a consequence wouldn't get software into main Debian's repositories. So are the ones that in an hypothetical Debian membership to OSI would need to be changed so that membership gets effective. The Apple one is the only example I have found in non-free, but there may be others on OSI's list which wouldn't get in: the debian project (and especially debian-legal and even more so the few lawyers to which debian sometimes refers) have limited resources and doesn't go around pre-approving licences before there's anything worth including under it. Hope that explains, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1rzpgp-00034p...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
On 02/17/2012 06:11 PM, MJ Ray wrote: Jose Luis Rivas ghost...@debian.org Just to give context to your email, could you provide a list with the OSI-approved licenses that you call non-free? (Maybe a link) That way every one else knows which licenses are you talking about exactly. http://people.debian.org/~mjr/legal/fsf-osi-list-diff.txt shows the ones where OSI and FSF disagree, but what's the point of knowing which are involved? Basically, OSI has aided proliferation. Regards Hi MJ, The point of my question is to give _context_. Which of the list are non-free and as a consequence wouldn't get software into main Debian's repositories. So are the ones that in an hypothetical Debian membership to OSI would need to be changed so that membership gets effective. That's what I understand from Josselin's email from: I’m very worried to see Debian’s name used to condone licenses we would not accept. Which are those licenses? Regards. -- Jose Luis Rivas - GPG: 0x7C4DF50D / 0xCACAB118 The Debian Project Developer -- http://ghostbar.ath.cx Barquisimeto, Venezuela signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OSI affiliation
On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:41:10 +, MJ Ray m...@phonecoop.coop wrote: Jose Luis Rivas ghost...@debian.org Just to give context to your email, could you provide a list with the OSI-approved licenses that you call non-free? (Maybe a link) That way every one else knows which licenses are you talking about exactly. http://people.debian.org/~mjr/legal/fsf-osi-list-diff.txt shows the ones where OSI and FSF disagree, but what's the point of knowing which are involved? Basically, OSI has aided proliferation. That list doesn't answer the question asked, in that I imagine that some or all of those licenses are what we'd accept as free. I'd be rather more interested in a list of licenses that are all of: a) approved by OSI b) rejected by us c) actually applied to software that is otherwise worth packaging, and hence where OSI is doing real harm by muddying the water. If they've approved a license or two in error (the first Apple license for instance) then as long as nobody is using that license it doesn't make a lot of difference, but it would be nice if they made a point of cleaning up their act by finally declaring such certifications as flawed, and revoking them. If they've not already done so, they could also have a Open Source, but we'd rather you didn't use this drivel category, with a recommended equivalent license that is a better choice if you were thinking of using that one. Cheers, Phil. -- |)| Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]http://www.hands.com/ |-| HANDS.COM Ltd.http://www.uk.debian.org/ |(| 10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London E18 1NE ENGLAND pgpi2gR2R0Me0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OSI affiliation
On Sat, 2012-02-18 at 09:31 +, Philip Hands wrote: On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:41:10 +, MJ Ray m...@phonecoop.coop wrote: Jose Luis Rivas ghost...@debian.org Just to give context to your email, could you provide a list with the OSI-approved licenses that you call non-free? (Maybe a link) That way every one else knows which licenses are you talking about exactly. http://people.debian.org/~mjr/legal/fsf-osi-list-diff.txt shows the ones where OSI and FSF disagree, but what's the point of knowing which are involved? Basically, OSI has aided proliferation. [...] If they've not already done so, they could also have a Open Source, but we'd rather you didn't use this drivel category, with a recommended equivalent license that is a better choice if you were thinking of using that one. OSI's proliferation report http://opensource.org/proliferation-report and list by category http://opensource.org/licenses/category distinguishes their favoured common licences and the pointless licences, though it doesn't say which common licences are recommended as alternatives. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers. - Leonard Brandwein signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: OSI affiliation
Philip Hands p...@hands.com On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:41:10 +, MJ Ray m...@phonecoop.coop wrote: Jose Luis Rivas ghost...@debian.org Just to give context to your email, could you provide a list with the OSI-approved licenses that you call non-free? (Maybe a link) [...] http://people.debian.org/~mjr/legal/fsf-osi-list-diff.txt shows the ones where OSI and FSF disagree, but what's the point of knowing which are involved? Basically, OSI has aided proliferation. That list doesn't answer the question asked, in that I imagine that some or all of those licenses are what we'd accept as free. No, I know, but I was trying to question what the point of it was: the debian project accepts software not licences. After all, we don't really care if a licence is free but the application is botched or something else causes the software to fail to meet the DFSG. Contrarily, OSI never used to care if there was worthwhile software, only if there was a scary lawyer. I'd be rather more interested in a list of licenses that are all of: a) approved by OSI b) rejected by us c) actually applied to software that is otherwise worth packaging, and hence where OSI is doing real harm by muddying the water. Listings welcome, but I suspect that's not reasonable: flat-out rejections are rather hard to find and reviewing all software is a very big job. When I last checked non-free, I spotted only the Apple Public Source License that you mentioned from the OSI approved list. That might mean that none of the others is used for software worth packaging, it might mean that they don't even allow distribution in debian, or - most probably - that I didn't notice it. Hope that informs, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1ryjqg-000855...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
Philip Hands p...@hands.com wrote: [...] So whatever we might think about the merits of the Open Source term, it hardly seems like a step forward to render such references into hanging links just at the point where policy makers are starting to get the message. I agree with Phil. That is why my preference is for OSI to merge into a continuing non-zombie group that could maintain web links and so on. Much better to try to ensure that that licenses list is actually sane, which is something we may be able to do something about if we affiliate, [...] There is no evidence for that yet. It's vapourware, isn't it? Or is there some secret OSI-promises-to-reform-in-consultation-with-us part of the proposed affiliation terms that I've missed? Even worse, this sounds like the sort of constructive engagement nonsense which is failing to change Big Oil, Big Power and things like that (= no change for them, except they have access to supposedly-ethical/activist investment funds). This is backwards. Could interested debian developers go help reform OSI and then, once it's reformed, suggest that the project affiliates? [...] P.S. I encourage people to respond to the consultation mentioned above. It actually looks pretty good. [...] I agree with Phil. Maybe some ideas/tips will be thrown around on http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/fsfe-uk/ before the consultation closes. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1rylm8-0004zd...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
Le lundi 13 février 2012 à 18:40 +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli a écrit : Dear project members, as you might have heard post-FOSDEM, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) is opening up to an affiliate membership structure [1,2]. As I've already mentioned in [3], representatives of OSI have approached me to know if Debian is interested into joining. I'd like to discuss with you such a possibility. This looks very good on paper, but as others have mentioned, the OSI has taken various decisions that were in complete contradiction with the Debian project, especially on accepting non-free licenses as “open source”. While it would be nice to see their decision process evolve to become saner on this matter, I’m very worried to see Debian’s name used to condone licenses we would not accept. Therefore, having an advisor from the Project at OSI would be nice, but in no situation should Debian’s name be affiliated with OSI until we have seen over several years that their behavior has effectively changed, and that “open source” certifications for non-free licenses have been revoked. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette : :' : `. `' `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1329484159.3297.818.camel@pi0307572
Re: OSI affiliation
On 02/17/2012 08:39 AM, Josselin Mouette wrote: This looks very good on paper, but as others have mentioned, the OSI has taken various decisions that were in complete contradiction with the Debian project, especially on accepting non-free licenses as “open source”. While it would be nice to see their decision process evolve to become saner on this matter, I’m very worried to see Debian’s name used to condone licenses we would not accept. Therefore, having an advisor from the Project at OSI would be nice, but in no situation should Debian’s name be affiliated with OSI until we have seen over several years that their behavior has effectively changed, and that “open source” certifications for non-free licenses have been revoked. Hi Josselin, Just to give context to your email, could you provide a list with the OSI-approved licenses that you call non-free? (Maybe a link) That way every one else knows which licenses are you talking about exactly. Regards. -- Jose Luis Rivas - GPG: 0x7C4DF50D / 0xCACAB118 The Debian Project Developer -- http://ghostbar.ath.cx Barquisimeto, Venezuela signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OSI affiliation
Jose Luis Rivas ghost...@debian.org Just to give context to your email, could you provide a list with the OSI-approved licenses that you call non-free? (Maybe a link) That way every one else knows which licenses are you talking about exactly. http://people.debian.org/~mjr/legal/fsf-osi-list-diff.txt shows the ones where OSI and FSF disagree, but what's the point of knowing which are involved? Basically, OSI has aided proliferation. Regards -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1rywui-00076b...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 06:41:04PM +, Steve McIntyre wrote: Hmmm. I *hope* they manage to achieve some of this, but I'll admit to being skeptical. There's been a lot more heat than light in discussions I've been seen in and around the OSI in the last few years. It would be nice to see them doing useful work. On the other hand, OSI, like everyone else, needs people who do the work, and it seems to me that it can't hurt us to have a closer relationship with them. On the other hand, if we don't do that, that will help make it harder for them to achieve anything. So I think it would be good to follow Zack's lead on this. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: OSI affiliation
Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 10:06:56PM +, MJ Ray wrote: I would be disappointed if this happened. The Open Source Initiative failed, for reasons that aren't important at this point - they should belatedly accept that and merge its corporation into SPI or another suitable continuing vehicle, rather than continue as an unseemly zombie organisation with its non-FOSS certification scheme that Wow, that's quite a bold paragraph :) Someone once said we're at our best when we're at our boldest. I'm not sure what you mean with failed, given that the organization exists, [...] The OSI was an initiative to secure a trade mark for open source. http://slashdot.org/articles/980810/1817242.shtml seems to be one of the few places I could find the original announcement of OSI (rather than the term open source - it's not been available on the OSI website for some time AFAIK). No trade mark was possible = it failed. That's not debatable, is it? I'm sorely aware that the corporation still exists. That's why I call it a zombie or body-snatcher. Many of us who supported the original initative learned quite a lot about trade marks and how icky they are, then stopped supporting it. The organisation was repurposed around a certification mark and a rather annoying begware licensing scheme, instead of closing down or merging up in a timely fashion. I also don't understand the analogy you're making among SPI and OSI: they pursue rather different goals. Sorry - I meant to make a comparison, not an analogy. What are OSI's goals? The OSI are the stewards of the Open Source Definition (OSD) and the community-recognized body for reviewing and approving licenses as OSD-conformant. http://www.opensource.org/about That's what it says on OSI's tin. I think the OSI lawyer-heavy community-light process has caused conflict with debian developers and ftpmasters a few times in the past. So why is OSD stewardship and someone else approving more licences something the debian project should support? Now, the OP said that OSI is changing. Great. Can we at least let it change, then decide, instead of buying vapourware? If we can help shape the change, so much the better. But my preferred change would be to wind up OSI, about a dozen years late, and make its tasks a subgroup of some more holistic community association. If we want to get involved in the important political battles more, we should support the older organisations, some of which we are already affiliated to. As a matter of fact, there aren't that many organizations that both do Free Software political battles and accept affiliation at the project granularity. Most only accept individual memberships and donations --- entirely legitimate ways of seeking for help, but not something we could pursue as a project. Yes, I agree. I'm acutely aware of this. I think that some of them only have associate memberships or supporterships or donorships, not even individual memberships. Nevertheless, we're already involved with some and I think OSI adds nothing good to the current mix. Also, we're not exactly bestowing more support on our existing partner organisations than they could use, are we? First of all, there is no mutual exclusion here. We're discussing this opportunity here and now, because they've approached us now (and because we're nice folks who consider and answer to proposals). We can discuss other proposals in the future, without incompatibilities. Please don't be flattered. You don't need to dance with every hot stud that asks. Then, I've some troubles instantiating the plural of your paragraph above. The only organization I see that fits it is SPI. I think there's 8 delegated organisations at the moment. There are two that are minimalist groups that I suspect don't want more help, two that look like they could use it (but maybe restricted to particular human languages) and the others that I don't know. We're contributing *a lot* to SPI: I've done that as Debian project liaison for the past 2 years¹ and 7 out of 9 members of SPI board of directors are Debian Developers. I also routinely call for Debian Developers to get more active in SPI, because that would increase the quality of the services they offer not only to Debian, but to all affiliated projects. I know, I'm thankful for those that do and I'm sorry I've not done more. I wonder if any of those 7 are, like me, contributors to more than one associated project. But DDs could still do more. You seem to imply that affiliating to OSI would diminish our participation in SPI. I fail to see the logic behind that implication. The underlying reason is the project has a finite pool of volunteers. Other organisations have better goals than OSI, but OSI has been very successful with marketing and ignoring the inconsistencies at the heart of the organisation, so I fear that debian would be encouraging more castles to be
Re: OSI affiliation
On Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:36:21 +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 10:06:56PM +, MJ Ray wrote: I would be disappointed if this happened. The Open Source Initiative failed, for reasons that aren't important at this point - they should belatedly accept that and merge its corporation into SPI or another suitable continuing vehicle, rather than continue as an unseemly zombie organisation with its non-FOSS certification scheme that Wow, that's quite a bold paragraph :) I'm not sure what you mean with failed, given that the organization exists, has been active recently, and still is considered (ymmv, of course) a reputable source for deciding which licenses are Free and which are not The UK government has a consultation paper out right now: http://consultation.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/openstandards/ that links to OSI's license list to define what they mean by open source licenses, as you can see in the fifth paragraph here: http://consultation.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/openstandards/chapter-1/ So whatever we might think about the merits of the Open Source term, it hardly seems like a step forward to render such references into hanging links just at the point where policy makers are starting to get the message. Much better to try to ensure that that licenses list is actually sane, which is something we may be able to do something about if we affiliate, whereas at this point it seems unlikely that we'd have any luck either destroying the OSI or persuading politicians to use terminology we prefer. Cheers, Phil. P.S. I encourage people to respond to the consultation mentioned above. It actually looks pretty good. For example, it seems to be leaning towards the idea that (F)RAND licensing is nothing that one wants in an open standard. I'm not convinced that they've entirely understood the nuances of Free Software licencing (in that they seem to think that some licenses insist that one publish modifications, which I think is the sort of thing that fails our desert island test, and I'm not aware of any free software licenses that insist that -- they're presumably misreading the GPL). -- |)| Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]http://www.hands.com/ |-| HANDS.COM Ltd.http://www.uk.debian.org/ |(| 10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London E18 1NE ENGLAND pgpfUUe6Wq4rf.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OSI affiliation
On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 10:06:56PM +, MJ Ray wrote:
I would be disappointed if this happened. The Open Source Initiative
failed, for reasons that aren't important at this point - they should
belatedly accept that and merge its corporation into SPI or another
suitable continuing vehicle, rather than continue as an unseemly
zombie organisation with its non-FOSS certification scheme that
Wow, that's quite a bold paragraph :)
I'm not sure what you mean with failed, given that the organization
exists, has been active recently, and still is considered (ymmv, of
course) a reputable source for deciding which licenses are Free and
which are not (together with FSF and Debian, I dare to say). They seem
to have been inactive for a long while, as I mentioned. But that seems
to be changing right now and comes with the possibility for all
interested projects to join and shape the future of the organization.
I also don't understand the analogy you're making among SPI and OSI:
they pursue rather different goals.
If we want to get involved in the important political battles more, we
should support the older organisations, some of which we are already
affiliated to.
As a matter of fact, there aren't that many organizations that both do
Free Software political battles and accept affiliation at the project
granularity. Most only accept individual memberships and donations ---
entirely legitimate ways of seeking for help, but not something we could
pursue as a project.
Also, we're not exactly bestowing more support on our existing partner
organisations than they could use, are we?
First of all, there is no mutual exclusion here. We're discussing this
opportunity here and now, because they've approached us now (and because
we're nice folks who consider and answer to proposals). We can discuss
other proposals in the future, without incompatibilities.
Then, I've some troubles instantiating the plural of your paragraph
above. The only organization I see that fits it is SPI. We're
contributing *a lot* to SPI: I've done that as Debian project liaison
for the past 2 years¹ and 7 out of 9 members of SPI board of directors
are Debian Developers. I also routinely call for Debian Developers to
get more active in SPI, because that would increase the quality of the
services they offer not only to Debian, but to all affiliated projects.
You seem to imply that affiliating to OSI would diminish our
participation in SPI. I fail to see the logic behind that implication.
Cheers.
[1] although only on matters related to the services that SPI's is
offering us, so you could argue it doesn't count as contributing
--
Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o .
Maître de conférences .. http://upsilon.cc/zack .. . . o
Debian Project Leader... @zack on identi.ca ...o o o
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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Re: OSI affiliation
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 06:40:08PM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: Dear project members, as you might have heard post-FOSDEM, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) is opening up to an affiliate membership structure [1,2]. As I've already mentioned in [3], representatives of OSI have approached me to know if Debian is interested into joining. I'd like to discuss with you such a possibility. [1] http://www.opensource.org/node/604 [2] http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Open-Source-Initiative-affiliates-announced-at-FOSDEM-1428905.html [3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2011/12/msg0.html For now, the only responsibility would be to have a Debian project representative participate into OSI activities, as an advisor. Later on, once the old style OSI board and the initial OSI affiliates have finalized the governance structure, affiliate projects are expected to have a say in OSI activities and decisions. Hmmm. I *hope* they manage to achieve some of this, but I'll admit to being skeptical. There's been a lot more heat than light in discussions I've been seen in and around the OSI in the last few years. It would be nice to see them doing useful work. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com You can't barbecue lettuce! -- Ellie Crane -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120215184104.gk3...@einval.com
Re: OSI affiliation
Stefano Zacchiroli dijo [Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 06:40:08PM +0100]: Dear project members, as you might have heard post-FOSDEM, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) is opening up to an affiliate membership structure [1,2]. As I've already mentioned in [3], representatives of OSI have approached me to know if Debian is interested into joining. I'd like to discuss with you such a possibility. (...) I think it's a great idea and opportunity. I agree with the rest of what you mention here - And although many of us don't identify with OSI's name or (part of) its historical behaviour, I think the coincidences are greater than the differences. OSI's name is widely recognized, and it is a very worthy organization with which we can surely push important points. As for what you mention on the DFSG and the OSD: There are many attempts at defining free software/open source. Each group has a slightly (or very?) different mindset. And although I'd love to be able to re-align our various definitions, I think it's not worth the energy it will require: We are similar enough for the world-facing activities, and know how to deal with each other on the inside-facing ones. We have had important disagreements so far in the project history (eg. the FSF: GFDL freeness / Debian's non-free taints us all). Neither them nor us is completely right - And we work together in the bigger order, although we bitch loudly towards the inside. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: OSI affiliation
Stefano Zacchiroli lea...@debian.org as you might have heard post-FOSDEM, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) is opening up to an affiliate membership structure [1,2]. As I've already mentioned in [3], representatives of OSI have approached me to know if Debian is interested into joining. I'd like to discuss with you such a possibility. [1] http://www.opensource.org/node/604 [2] http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Open-Source-Initiative-affiliates-announced-at-FOSDEM-1428905.html [3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2011/12/msg0.html I would be disappointed if this happened. The Open Source Initiative failed, for reasons that aren't important at this point - they should belatedly accept that and merge its corporation into SPI or another suitable continuing vehicle, rather than continue as an unseemly zombie organisation with its non-FOSS certification scheme that rewarded licence proliferation and people that could hire strong legal advocates until rather recently. I feel it would not make sense to merge the DFSG and the OSD because they are trying to do two different things. One aims to be a set of practical guidelines for free software, the other aims to define the parameters of a proprietary certification scheme for licences. OSI took a set of guidelines that tried to reflect the free software definition and tried to use it as a competing definition. Now there seems no prospect of it being dropped because OSI has invested too much in using it as a distinct definition. If we want to get involved in the important political battles more, we should support the older organisations, some of which we are already affiliated to. We could encourage OSI to merge into one of them. Lending our firepower to the loose cannon of an organisation that is no longer the original initative but keeps using the name does not sound like a good idea. Also, we're not exactly bestowing more support on our existing partner organisations than they could use, are we? I think at least one of them is discussing hiring workers rather than using volunteers. Hope that explains, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1rxqww-0005ot...@petrol.towers.org.uk
OSI affiliation
Dear project members,
as you might have heard post-FOSDEM, the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
is opening up to an affiliate membership structure [1,2]. As I've
already mentioned in [3], representatives of OSI have approached me to
know if Debian is interested into joining. I'd like to discuss with you
such a possibility.
[1] http://www.opensource.org/node/604
[2]
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Open-Source-Initiative-affiliates-announced-at-FOSDEM-1428905.html
[3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2011/12/msg0.html
For now, the only responsibility would be to have a Debian project
representative participate into OSI activities, as an advisor. Later on,
once the old style OSI board and the initial OSI affiliates have
finalized the governance structure, affiliate projects are expected to
have a say in OSI activities and decisions.
Although I'd like to hear your comments before deciding, my advice is to
accept the invitation and have Debian join OSI. My rationale for that is
twofold:
- OSI history is intertwined with ours and we share a common heritage:
the DFSG. Having the actors interested in such a document work more
closely together is, IMHO, desirable.
(As a side note on this: ours and OSI's version of DFSG have diverged
through the years. It'd be nice to see if we can merge the differences
and/or generalize the texts so that other distros and projects can
benefit from them.)
- OSI seems to have evolved quite a bit as of recently. After many years
of low activity, they have took part in important political battles
for Free Software. They have also done so side by side with other
organizations, including the FSF (see [4] for a recent example on
software patents). Those battles are important for Debian and their
outcomes will influence us, whether we like it or not. Unfortunately
we rarely have the energy, structure, or visibility to fight them.
Lacking those resources, joining an association who has them is a
useful way to contribute.
[4] http://www.fsf.org/news/osi-fsf-joint-position-cptn
Again, the above is just my personal advice. I'll be happy to read your
comments and use them to make a more informed decision.
Cheers.
PS just in case you care about that debate: I'm no fan of the expression
open source; I believe that user freedoms are here to stay, while
development methodologies are not. I consider that part of the OSI
name to be, essentially, historical heritage. I don't think it should
stop us from working with OSI, if we consider that doing so is a
useful thing to do
--
Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o .
Maître de conférences .. http://upsilon.cc/zack .. . . o
Debian Project Leader... @zack on identi.ca ...o o o
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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Re: OSI affiliation
On 02/13/2012 01:10 PM, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: - OSI history is intertwined with ours and we share a common heritage: the DFSG. Having the actors interested in such a document work more closely together is, IMHO, desirable. (As a side note on this: ours and OSI's version of DFSG have diverged through the years. It'd be nice to see if we can merge the differences and/or generalize the texts so that other distros and projects can benefit from them.) - OSI seems to have evolved quite a bit as of recently. After many years of low activity, they have took part in important political battles for Free Software. They have also done so side by side with other organizations, including the FSF (see [4] for a recent example on software patents). Those battles are important for Debian and their outcomes will influence us, whether we like it or not. Unfortunately we rarely have the energy, structure, or visibility to fight them. Lacking those resources, joining an association who has them is a useful way to contribute. [4] http://www.fsf.org/news/osi-fsf-joint-position-cptn Again, the above is just my personal advice. I'll be happy to read your comments and use them to make a more informed decision. I found the same reasons in my head while reading the first part of your email. I truly believe Debian should be an OSI affiliate Regards. -- Jose Luis Rivas - GPG: 0x7C4DF50D / 0xCACAB118 The Debian Project Developer -- http://ghostbar.ath.cx Barquisimeto, Venezuela signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OSI affiliation
On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 18:40 +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: [...] Although I'd like to hear your comments before deciding, my advice is to accept the invitation and have Debian join OSI. [...] +1 -- Ben Hutchings Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers. - Leonard Brandwein signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
