I'd like to start by thanking Jeremy Hankins for his summary of debian-legal's objections to the Open Software License v2.0 in http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/05/msg00118.html
Version 2.1 is upon us. It can be found at http://www.opensource.org/licenses/osl-2.1.php They do not provide a diff between v2.0 and v2.1, unfortunately, so here it is. I omitted some minor reformatting differences; no textual changes have been omitted. @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -Open Software License v. 2.0 +Open Software License v. 2.1 1) Grant of Copyright License. Licensor hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, @@ -119,10 +119,10 @@ This License shall terminate automatically and You may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License as of the date You commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim, - for patent infringement (i) against Licensor with respect to a patent - applicable to software or (ii) against any entity with respect to a - patent applicable to the Original Work (but excluding combinations - of the Original Work with other software or hardware). + against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work + infringes a patent. This termination provision shall not apply for an + action alleging patent infringement by combinations of the Original + Work with other software or hardware. 11) Jurisdiction, Venue and Governing Law. Any action or suit relating to this License may be brought only in @@ -167,7 +167,7 @@ or conditioned by this License or by law, and Licensor promises not to interfere with or be responsible for such uses by You. -This license is Copyright (C) 2003 Lawrence E. Rosen. All rights -reserved. Permission is hereby granted to copy and distribute this -license without modification. This license may not be modified without +This license is Copyright (C) 2003-2004 Lawrence E. Rosen. All rights +reserved. Permission is hereby granted to copy and distribute this +license without modification. This license may not be modified without the express written permission of its copyright owner. I believe the change to section 10 of the licence is sufficient to address the objection to that section in the original summary. Is there consensus on this? I further believe the objection to item #5 in the original summary is spurious. As admitted in the summary, the DFSG does not prohibit this. The Dissident test is under question and does not appear to have broad support within Debian as an additional DFSG guideline, so the objection to item #9 is irrelevant. I therefore believe the only remaining objection to the OSL v2.1 is item #6. It seems the objections could be resolved by clarifications to the wording rather than being against the philosophy of the item. If there is broad agreement upon this point, I'll contact Larry Rosen and ask him to clarify the wording in this section. -- "Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain
